


maybe we'll work it out

by tp_wk



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: Accidental Pregnancy, F/M, Kid Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-30
Updated: 2018-10-14
Packaged: 2019-04-30 00:49:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 40,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14485116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tp_wk/pseuds/tp_wk
Summary: “Tessa, come on, out with it,” Scott grabs her hand and squeezes it tightly before letting go. Except she continues to hold on. “You’re scaring me, kiddo.”She shakes her head. “Don’t call me that,” and it sends shock waves through his system because she’s never asked him to not call her that. Since he jokingly teased her one day in Waterloo, when he turned thirteen and was considered a teenager and she was still eleven, a child, a kid. He’s been calling her the nickname foryears.“Tess-”“I’m pregnant.”Oh.(OR the accidental pregnancy fic that apparently a lot of you asked for)





	1. before.

**Author's Note:**

> title taken from meet me in the hallway by harry styles.

They win. They fucking win. 

It settles in his chest in this weird way. It’s different than Vancouver, different than Sochi. Well, they didn’t win in Sochi, so he guesses it really is different. But sitting in the Kiss and Cry, waiting for their scores to file in is a feeling like he’s never had. It’s exciting and exhausting and the anxiety he has sits so heavy on his chest. 

But he doesn’t have to think about it for long because new feelings wash over him. When the 206.07 flashes onto the screen, Scott leaps up and faintly hears a small scream come from beside him. He scoops Tessa up and pulls her so tight.

“Holy shit,” he breathes into her neck, makes sure his words and mouth are hidden against her skin, away from the rest of the world. “We fucking did it.”

Tessa’s body jerks against him and she lets out a sound he hasn’t heard since Vancouver. “We did it.”

“I love you,” he grips the back of her neck so hard he thinks he may snap it. “Fuck, I love you so much.”

She laughs and he can feel a tear drip wet onto his shoulder. “I love you.”

~

They probably shouldn’t have walked back to her hotel room together. They probably shouldn’t have walked in holding hands. They probably shouldn’t have looked at each other like they were the beginning and end of the other’s world. They probably shouldn’t have kissed. They probably shouldn’t have stripped each other bare, of both their clothes and the layers upon layers of walls they’ve both put up over the past twenty years. They probably shouldn’t have torn each other apart, piece by piece, leaving it all on a creaky bed in South Korea.

But they do it anyways. 

Scott supposes she’s already fucked him up so many times before, why not add one more to the laundry list?

~

When he wakes up in the morning his neck aches and his skin is cold and there’s a weight pressing on his right arm. Scott turns his head and sees Tessa’s back, bare besides the freckles dotted across her pale skin. Her hair fans out around her, some strands sticking to his skin and others flying into his mouth when he opens it in shock. 

It’s not like he’s hungover not remembering the night before. He remembers. Can see it all so vividly and clearly flashing behind his eyelids. There’s Tessa and her mouth and her skin and her voice, all melding together into something he can only classify as sinful. 

She stirs beside him when he tries to slide his arm out from under her. The way her eyes flash open, so green and piercing, hurts him in all the best ways. He’d say it feels like his heart is beating out of his chest, but when she looks at him he thinks it’s already settled neatly in her hands. 

“Hi,” she whispers and the sound is like a whip against his entire system. 

No matter what the rest of the world thinks, Tessa and Scott have never so much as kissed outside of the rink. Except that one time at the Ilderton Carnival when he was ten and stupid and leaned in to plant a wet kiss on Tessa’s mouth. It practically missed though, ended up landing more on her cheek than her actual lips. Nonetheless, there’s nothing between them, never has been and—well, he used to say never will, but. 

(And, there was also that one time in 2013, when Scott had a girlfriend and Tessa had a boyfriend and they messily made out in the back seat of her car. Before one of them (Tessa) pulled away and ran, from the feelings and the situation from the way they just about ruined everything. But does it really count if it’s with each other? They wouldn’t know, they don’t talk about it.)

“Hi,” he whispers back and tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. 

Scott’s not blind, is the thing. Even though they’ve never done anything like _this_ per se, he’s thought about it. A lot. Well, maybe not a lot. He likes to keep some semblance of himself in check. But there are times when he’s in the shower or in an empty change room or lying in bed, when his mind wanders to Tessa and his hand wanders even further. 

Dancing with a woman for most of your life has its perks. 

One; learning how to work yourself around a girl’s body. Scott’s known for years how to hold Tessa, where to touch and caress her in all the proper places. His hands are always soft, unless he needs to hoist her up or spin her around. Sometimes, he thinks, her body has grown and developed so that her curves can perfectly fit every part of him. He knows that it isn’t scientifically accurate in any way, but his imagination has always been quite wild. 

Two; you get ultimate status among the other males. _God, you’re all so predictable_ Tessa grunted out one Saturday morning at the rink when they were sixteen and eighteen. The hockey team was filing in, gearing up to take over the ice and practice. She caught him looking at the group multiple times, each glance causing him to pull her in closer, hold her hips tighter, brush his lips against different areas of her exposed skin. He just blushed and winked at her, leaned in and planted a kiss against her cheek. The hockey players came up to him after and asked if he had fucked her yet. Scott never showed her off like that again.

Three; advice. _Wear the blue one_ Tessa had smiled at him from the spot on his couch where she was watching him get ready for his second date with Jess. He smiled and completely missed the way her face fell when he left to pick Jess up, planted a kiss on her cheek and a _thank you, love you_ slipped from his lips.

Four; apparently, and this is a onetime thing, he swears, but apparently sex.

“Uhm,” Tessa mumbles beside him, pushes herself against the wall and away from his body. Scott frowns. “Maybe you should leave.”

It feels like a knife goes through him. “Why?”

“Kaitlyn is going to be back soon,” Tessa says, plain and simple, like she isn’t snapping his heart in half. “And, uh, yeah.”

Scott nods his head. “Okay,” he says and gets up out of bed. He’s still naked, and when she stares at him it feels like not only his skin is bare, but the rest of him too. “Can we talk, though?”

“About what?” she asks, like there isn’t just a sheet covering up her body and he isn’t yanking on his underwear.

He scoffs. “This,” he gestures between them. “What we did.”

“I, uh,” Tessa stutters around her thoughts. It’s rare for her to not know what to say. “Scott, I don’t think we should have done it.”

Scott schools his face, erases any lick of emotion that may settle into the lines on his skin. “Okay,” and his voice is so hollow it makes her wince. 

“Scott, come on. You know we shouldn’t have. It was… a rush of adrenaline.” She says it so firmly he starts to believe it himself, if only for just a moment. “I don’t want to ruin us,” Tessa reaches out and grabs his hand. He lets her. 

_Too late_ , he thinks.

~

They do a lot of press and media. It’s not his forte, if he’s honest. All the cameras make his skin crawl in the worst way, the interviewers throwing questions at him and the world expecting a thoughtful and put together answer. It’s a lot, too much. But she’s so good at it all, takes it in stride with her chin tilted towards the sky and a smile spread out across her mouth.

He’s been thinking about her mouth a lot lately (but, then again, when has he ever not thought about her mouth). Since that sinful night in South Korea where he tells himself they didn’t change anything. But he knows, deep in his gut, that it changed everything. 

Scott supposes that he’s always been in love with Tessa, in some way, shape, or form. It comes and goes in waves, like a tide sneaking up on the sand and retreating back to its humble abode after staying for only a short while.

There’s times when he looks at her and feels nothing. Well, not nothing, more like less of everything he’s usually feeling. It typically happens when he has a girlfriend, someone waiting at home for him to walk through the door and beg him to stay _just one more night_. And maybe that’s why he’s such a serial monogamist, because the only way to bid adieu to these messy feelings that will only fuck things up even more, is to suppress them with girlfriend after girlfriend who, he knows, will never be enough.

Someone confronts him about it one day, out of the blue. He doesn’t even know them that well, but when they say, “Isn’t it funny how all of your exes look like Tessa?” it cuts through him the same as if his own mother told him the statement.

He doesn’t do it on purpose, but maybe there’s a constant loop of _Tessa Tessa Tessa_ engrained in his subconscious, forcing him to make these decisions with thoughts of her woven so carefully in between them. She’s always on his mind, wherever he goes, whoever he’s with. One time, in a stupid online class he had to take for his high school diploma, he learned about sections of the brain. There’s the hypothalamus, the hippocampus, the amygdala. But, Scott thinks, he’s pretty sure there’s a section in his brain that’s reserved just for Tessa. 

It’s a part he doesn’t click into much often, it only sends off signals when he brushes his hand too far up her thigh, or when she brings her face so close to his he thinks it will finally happen. It sets off this unexplainable feeling, deep in his stomach, whenever she denies their relationship is anything but a friendship. It causes him to try really, _really_ hard to remember the name of the girl laying underneath him, if only so he doesn’t accidentally moan out a long and painful _Tessa_.

He’s dealing with it though. If twenty years has taught him anything, it’s how to turn off this part of his brain. 

(Except he’s not really dealing with it, because now he knows what it’s like to touch her in all the ways he’s always wanted, and to lose focus and actually moan out her name because she’s the one driving his nerves to the edge of all their synapses.)

~

His suspicions of change come true before she’s supposed to go on CTV for an entire day. When she first told him about the gig, he laughed and poked fun at her, wondering when she’s going to get a talk show of her own. Tessa scoffed and pushed at his shoulders.

They’re in Hamilton for Patrick’s retirement party. She looks beautiful, as usual, clothed in this loose dress that reminds him of summer even though it’s the dead cold of winter and they’ve just been hit with the worst storm of the year. _One for the History Books_ is what the headline in the Toronto Star said yesterday. 

His mom practically forced him to stay home. “Scott, come on. The roads are going to be so bad,” she had told him over the phone. 

“Mom, it’s fine,” he said to her. “Besides, I’m already on highway 6, there’s no turning back now.”

The huff he received in return said to Scott that it didn’t matter how old he got, he’d always be able to push his mother’s buttons.

Besides, he wasn’t going to miss Patrick’s retirement. It may also have to do with the fact that Tessa called him earlier today, sounding more frantic than anything, asking if he was coming tonight. Of course he was, is what he told her. She sighed in something akin to relief with a level of anxiousness mixed in between. (Spending twenty years with someone calls for being able to read even their puffs of breath.)

“We need to talk,” Tessa whispers in his ear once they greet each other in the middle of the room. 

He looks at her and tilts his head in confusion. “Is everything okay?”

“No,” she hisses. “Well, I don’t know. Sort of? Not really.”

Tessa’s not making any sense and Scott’s never been patient, so he grabs her hand and tugs her outside of the venue. There’s a secluded hallway that he brings her to. 

“Okay, what’s wrong?” he asks her.

Tessa scoffs and looks around. “I’m not doing this here.”

“Why not?”

“Because,” she whispers out sharply. He’s pretty sure she catches the surprised look on his face because she breathes in deeply, calming herself down. “Scott, this is big news. Like, life changing news. I don’t want to tell you something that’s going to change your life, _our lives_ , in some stupid hallway outside of Patrick fucking Chan’s retirement party.”

Her words don’t calm him one bit. “Well, now I want to know, so. You’re going to have to tell me here. Right now.”

“Scott-”

“Tessa, come on, out with it,” Scott grabs her hand and squeezes it tightly before letting go. Except she continues to hold on. “You’re scaring me, kiddo.”

She shakes her head. “Don’t call me that,” and it sends shock waves through his system because she’s never asked him to not call her that. Since he jokingly teased her one day in Waterloo, when he turned thirteen and was considered a teenager and she was still eleven, a child, a kid. He’s been calling her the nickname for _years_.

“Tess-”

“I’m pregnant.”

_Oh._

~

There was one time in Scott’s life where he felt anything close to the emotions that flood through him at this moment. It was in 2010, right before their free dance in Vancouver.

“I can’t feel my legs,” Tessa whispered to him, gripped onto his arm so tight he knew there’d be bruises in the morning (there were). 

He snaps his head towards her. “What?”

“I can’t feel my legs,” she repeats, this time with her eyes clouded with tears and her voice choked with them too. “Scott, I can’t-”

“Shh, T, it’s okay,” Scott soothes her, rubs his hands up and down her arms. “What do you need?”

“I can’t do this Scott. I can’t feel my fucking legs. We’re gonna lose the Olympics-”

“Hey,” he cuts her off. “Don’t say shit like that. We’re not gonna lose. I’m going to get Marina and we’re going to go out there and win ourselves a gold medal, you hear me?”

Tessa nods and Scott swipes away a tear that’s fallen down her cheek, leaving a trail of black mascara on her milky white skin. 

~

The thing about 2010 is that Scott talked Tessa through it, reassured her and comforted her and made everything feel all better. 

They didn’t lose, they won, and Scott held Tessa up the whole time (literally).

But now it’s flipped around. Tessa’s the one holding his face in her hands, rubbing her thumbs along his cheekbones. He tries to match his breathing with hers, tries to sync up like they’ve done so many times before, but her own breaths are ragged and quick. Scott thinks he’s going to pass out.

“Scott, breathe, come on,” Tessa whispers softly. Her hands on his face feel more like a noose than a comfort.

He steps away from her and paces the hallway. Tessa leans her back against the wall and watches his every move, flips her head back and forth like she’s watching a tennis match. 

“Wait,” Scott pauses for a moment and looks at her. “It’s mine?”

Tessa scoffs. “Who the fuck else’s would it be?”

Scott looks her up and down. _Who the fuck else’s would it be?_ He’s the only one she’s been with. “I don’t know.” She has a baby inside of her. His baby.

“Come on,” Tessa reaches her hand out. She’s nowhere near him, but he thinks she assumes he’ll fall into her. He’s made that mistake one too many times, and in fact, one of those times is what got them into this very predicament. “Can you at least stop pacing?”

“I’m processing!” he snaps, stops for a moment to glare at her, then continues his same foot path he’s been tracing out for the past minute or so.

Tessa’s always been the patient one, always has been Scott’s rock when he’s anxious or jittery or feeling like he’s floating off the edge of the earth. Now the weight of her drags him under the water, drowns him until he feels nothing but numbness. It’s a weird sensation. 

“We can’t talk about this here,” Scott finally concludes after another minute of silence and him walking the same trek a few more times. “Are you staying here tonight?”

Tessa shakes her head. “I have to go to Toronto tonight. They got a hotel for me.”

“I’m coming with you,” Scott decides before consulting with her. She just nods.

~

Scott has rarely been left speechless around Tessa. Usually he knows exactly what to talk about. Except that one time in 2008, right after her first surgery, where he had no clue what to say to her, so he just didn’t say anything. That didn’t work out very well in his favour, though, ended with him sulking in Canton and Tessa pouting in London and a shit ton of miscommunication and post-surgery-therapy sessions.

But here, in this hotel room, with Tessa sitting on the bed in front of him, he has no idea what to say. 

“Scott,” Tessa says quietly, scoots forward on the bed so she can place her hand on his knee. He flinches. “You know that this is something we both have to work through, okay. You and me.”

He crosses his arms in front of his chest. “How long have you known?” Scott still won’t look her in the eyes.

“I took a test this morning,” Tessa softly speaks. “But I knew something was off when we were in Japan. I felt so sick, that’s why I stayed behind so much.”

It makes sense to him, clicks somewhere in his brain the way Tessa’s energy levels went from one hundred to zero in such a short span of time. He thought it was just jet lag, but apparently it was so much more than that. It _is_ so much more than that. Scott still doesn’t know how to wrap his head around it all. He looks up at Tessa, then glances at her torso. It’s not like she’s showing or anything, her stomach is still very much in the same shape as it always has been. But there’s a baby in there, _his baby, their baby_.

“What are we going to do?” seems like the most logical question to ask next.

Tessa sighs. “Do you want to keep it?”

His head snaps up so he’s looking at her eyes. “Fuck, Tessa, of course. Unless…”

“No, yes, no. Sorry-” Tessa rushes out, waving her hands about and he has no idea what she’s trying to say. “Sorry. Yeah. I want to keep it, if that’s what you want?”

Scott nods his head. “I do.” It feels like he’s committing his entire life to her. To _them_. Tessa, his platonic skating/business partner who he fucked once, two months ago, and who is now carrying his baby. They’re best friends and it’s fucking complicated. “How do we, like, uh,” he pauses, tries to gather his thoughts. “How do we do this?”

“What do you mean?” Tessa asks.

“I don’t want this kid to feel like they have divorced parents or something,” Scott says. “I want them to have the both of us. You know?” he asks for clarification. 

(Scott doesn’t bring up the thought of them being together. He never brings it up though.)

Tessa nods. “Yeah. I want that too,” she says, low and hesitant like she’s making sure she doesn’t say the wrong thing. Scott feels the same way. 

It’s not like they’re figuring out what to order for dinner or even what music to skate to for their next exhibition program. They aren’t even talking about whether or not Tessa should get a second surgery or if they should try for one more Olympics. They are talking about a _baby_ , their baby, which is very real and very present. 

Scott’s always liked kids, don’t get him wrong. There’s something about the innocence and purity of a child, so untainted from the world around them, that’s drawn him in time and time again. Kids were always in the future. Key word; future. Not now, and not with Tessa. 

Well… in the back of his head it’s always been a thought that maybe it would be with Tessa.

“My friend from school,” Tessa starts, breaking Scott from his thoughts. “Her sister co-parents.”

Scott scoffs. “What the hell does that mean?”

“I guess she isn’t together with the dad, but they all live together anyways,” Tessa says, plain and simple, like she isn’t pulling what sounds like random thoughts from the air. “It could work.”

Scott gets up from his chair and flops face down on the bed beside Tessa. She turns her body towards him, sitting cross legged. “How the fuck did this happen?”

“You know how this happened,” Tessa pats the back of his thigh lightly. “Guess birth control really isn’t one hundred percent effective.”

He snorts. “Yeah, no shit.”

Scott looks up at Tessa and sees her eyes crinkle with a smile. And it hits him. She’s carrying his child. This beautiful woman whom he’s known his entire life, or at least what feels like his entire life. There’s always been this pull in his chest whenever she’s around. Her body is like metal and his eyes are like a magnet. 

There’s a wave that rolls over him and, without thinking, Scott reaches out and places a hand over Tessa’s abdomen. She inhales sharply, but he keeps his hand there, splays his fingers out so it’s practically covering her entire torso. And even though the situation is fucked up and his heart still hasn’t fixed itself into a practical beat, he smiles. 

“Our baby is in there, huh?”

Tessa giggles. “Yeah. They are.”

She places her hand over his and they intertwine fingers, just like they have so many times before. The way she looks at him like he’s hung all the stars in the sky makes him believe that they’re going to be okay. Him and Tessa and this small pea who has already changed their entire lives. 

~

Their families don’t really understand.

“I’m confused,” his mom says, her eyebrows scrunched together. “So you two, uh, had sex-”

“God, mom, yes,” Scott groans and runs his fingers through his hair. “You don’t have to keep repeating that part.”

Alma rolls her eyes and smacks his hand where it’s settled on his own knee. “I’m trying to make sense of all of this.”

“What’s there to make sense of? Tessa’s pregnant, and it’s my baby, but we’re not together and aren’t planning on getting together.” He often has to repeat the statement to himself, if only to make sense of the situation and also be able to say it without choking on his own words.

His mom purses her lips. “I still don’t understand. But,” she sighs and a smile settles over her face. “I always knew, in some way, you two would find a way to raise a family together. Even if it’s not conventional.”

Scott laughs. “What, you’ve never heard of people co-parenting? Pretty sure at least five people down the street are doing it now,” his voice is laced with sarcasm, which receives another slap on his wrist from his mother. 

“Don’t mess with me,” she says sternly, but the smile still reaching her eyes tells him she’s not too serious at the moment. “Can’t believe you’re gonna have a baby.”

Scott can’t help but smile as well. “Yeah.”

~

“How did Kate take the news?” Scott asks Tessa when they’re sat on her couch later that night. Tessa’s got her head in his lap and he’s practicing his braiding skills on different strands of her hair.

They agreed to tell their families separately, if only because they knew how different the reactions would be. It’d be better to tackle this alone, approaching the most difficult people to tell the news to. It’s hard, trying to explain a situation to the family members you love the most when you don’t even know how to grasp it yourself. 

Tessa huffs and closes her eyes. “It was… interesting.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“There were so many questions,” Tessa looks up at him and her eyes practically pierce his soul. “Doesn’t help that Jordan walked in halfway through.”

Scott’s mouth drops open. “No.”

“Yeah,” Tessa groans and buries her face in his stomach. “It was awful. I was really second guessing our whole _let’s do this separately_ decision.”

He runs his fingers through her hair, trying to bring some semblance of comfort over her. “I’m sorry, T.”

Tessa pulls away from the material of his shirt and looks up at him. “Promise me we won’t do anything separately again,” her voice is stern, final, like he has no way of negotiating or arguing himself out of this decision. “From now on, we’re in this together. Okay?”

Scott nods because of course. They’ve always been in this together. Now, it’s a new challenge. He doesn’t know whether to cringe or laugh at the fact that he’s calling a baby a challenge.

~

When Scott was sixteen and Tessa was fourteen, there was a night where they laid out under the stars in the back of his pick-up truck that he wasn’t technically old enough to drive yet, but he did it anyways.

“What do you see your future as?” Tessa asks him so softly he’s not even sure he hears her properly.

He looks over to see her green eyes already staring at him. Scott’s just started realizing that her eyes are this seafoam green, just like the ocean in British Columbia where he visited last month with his family. Tessa’s eyes are sixty percent ocean, and forty percent drowning (but for some reason, he never seems to want to grab a lifejacket). “What do you mean?”

“Like,” she licks her lips and it’s distracting. He’s found lately that a lot of the mundane things Tessa does, and has done for the whole time he’s known her, have become quite distracting. “Do you want to get married, or have kids? Do you, uhm,” she pauses and turns her head to look at the stars rather than his eyes. “Do you think about going to the Olympics?”

Scott reaches over and brushes his fingers along her palm where it’s flipped up beside him. “I think about going to the Olympics all the time.”

Her face is still facing straight, looking upwards towards the sky, when she asks, “With me?”

He properly holds her hand now. “Only with you.”

Tessa smiles and starts talking about her own future, how many kids she wants and what her husband is going to be like and how many medals she is going to have hanging on her fireplace mantel. He wishes that she’d turn her head to look at him and repeat his words from earlier.

_Only with you._

~

He’s heard about the glow that pregnant women get, the absolute joy that seems to seep into their skin and shine from the inside out. How they get so much more beautiful, and you can just _tell_ a woman is pregnant from the way they smile or how soft their hair looks or how bright their eyes turn. 

The thing is, Tessa’s always been beautiful. It’s not a shock that she’s been asked by company after company for her to sponsor them, to plaster herself on their magazines and shelves and products. She’s always been the best looking girl at any of their rinks. It used to completely infuriate them when Marina would pick her apart, piece by piece, in order to make her look better or to fit the ideal figure skater mold. He has no clue who decided what figure skaters should look like, but he thinks whoever they are, they’re stupid.

Tessa’s always been beautiful. And pregnant women are supposed to become even more ravishing. And he loves Tessa, don’t get him wrong, but he thinks that she may be the only pregnant woman ever to completely lose everything beautiful about her.

“I want to rip your throat out,” Tessa groans from where she’s sat in front of the toilet. “How dare you.”

He’s done nothing to her, though. Has simply sat here, rubbing her back and braiding the hair out of her face. But she’s glaring at him with the strength of about five oceans. “Tess,” Scott speaks in a soothing tone, continues to press his fingers into her lower back where he knows she’s been feeling pain lately. 

“No,” she snaps. “Don’t _Tess_ me. It’s because of your stupid dick and you’re apparently class A sperm that I’m here, throwing up my guts, for the fifth time today.”

Scott sighs and keeps his mouth shut. When he went to Charlie the other day to finally open up about how Tessa’s been driving him absolutely _crazy_ these past few weeks, his brother just laughed and clapped him on the back. “Just shut up and get used to it, bro,” is all Charlie said. Scott doesn’t know if he can get used to it.

“I’m sorry,” Scott mumbles, slowly slips away from Tessa if only to give her space. “What can I do?”

“Get your balls cut off.”

Scott laughs loudly and clamps his hand over his mouth when she shoots him a glare. “Sorry, sorry. It’s not like we’re going to be doing the South Korea any time soon,” and yeah, they’ve started calling the one time they fucked and simultaneously fucked up _the South Korea_. Scott always thought that they’d be calling their gold medal win that name, not their accidental child.

Tessa glances his way, her eyes soft for a moment, but before she can say anything she’s turning her head back to the toilet bowl and throwing up. _The sixth time today_ she’d groan into his shoulder later. 

~

They sit down with a media team to determine how to go about releasing the information to the general public. He hates that they even have to think about that. This is their lives, their business, no one else needs to know the inner workings. But alas, people are going to soon notice Tessa’s belly and a small baby doting around after them in a few months. When they have to cancel their tour plans and go into hiding so hopefully they can stay in their bubble for a little longer. 

“Maybe we just say we’re together,” Tessa sighs when they throw another wad of paper into the garbage. “Seems like it’s easiest.”

Scott scoffs. “No, Tessa. We aren’t lying.”

She bites her lip and glances up at him. Her eyes tell him that she’s tired and just wants to come to a conclusion. “Or we could be honest,” she says, plain and simple.

“We could be honest,” Scott repeats.

They decide to let it come out naturally, when questions start being asked and pictures are released. Once it starts coming out, they’ll make a statement about how yes, it’s their child, and no they are not together, but they will be raising the kid as if they were. He still doesn’t understand the concept himself, months later.

Scott holds onto Tessa’s hand in the car ride home to London. “Do you think this will work?” he asks her, giving her fingers a light squeeze. 

“Doesn’t need to work,” she says. “I don’t care what anyone else thinks. This is you and me and baby. No one else.”

This is one of the many moments Scott thanks God that out of every woman in the world that this could have happened with, it ended up being Tessa (and he thinks this thought a lot). 

~

The first time (of many) he cries through the whole thing is in the doctor’s office.

“There’s the head,” the doctor points at a blob on the screen.

It becomes real, all of a sudden. It’s not like it hasn’t been this whole time, and it’s not like Tessa lied to him or anything. But there it is, on a blurry screen in front of him and it doesn’t really look like much of anything, but it’s their child.

Scott grips onto Tessa’s hand so hard he thinks it may fall off, but with the way her own knuckles are turning white, he thinks she might not care too much.

“That’s our baby,” he breathes out, his eyes not moving from the screen.

Tessa lets out this wet laugh and he knows she’s crying too. Scott looks down and sees tears pooling in her eyes. _Laughing and crying at the same time._ “That’s our baby,” she repeats his words like it’ll make it all more real if she does.

They print out a picture and he puts it on his fridge the second he gets home. _The first of many_ , he thinks. 

~

Apparently it’s the second trimester where pregnant women get their _glow_ , because Scott thinks Tessa’s never looked more beautiful in the entire twenty-one years he’s known her. And he’s seen her orgasm before, so.

“What are you doing here?” she asks him softly after approaching him from across the room. “You know this is a girls’ only event, yeah?”

Scott shrugs, looks around and sees the baby ducks and pink and blue balloons scattered around them. He glances to the corner of the room and sees Kate and Alma staring at the two of them. They’ve always been up to trouble, those two. “I know,” he says. “Thought I’d come and check in on the little man.”

Tessa scoffs and glances down at her belly, slightly protruding from her torso. “We don’t know if it’s a boy yet.”

“I know,” Scott grins and places his hand on her tummy. “I just have a feeling.”

“Of course you do,” Tessa smiles at him so soft he’s pretty sure his insides melt.

Scott rests his hand on her stomach for a beat longer before slowly pulling it away. “Just wanted to drop the cake off, you forgot it at home.”

They bought a house last month. It was a whim decision, one made with a lot of emotions and not a lot of thought. When they walked into the house Scott could picture it. Tessa sat in the living room reading to their child. Scott in the kitchen making dinner for everyone (because God knows she’d burn the whole place down). Their kid playing in the backyard, running around trying to catch butterflies. It’s located in the middle of Ilderton and London, an amalgamation of the two places both of them call home. The country road is small enough that it’s close to the city, but long enough that Scott can have the life he’s always dreamed of. Well, not quite the exact life, but something pretty close.

“This is it,” Tessa breathed beside him, glancing at the older woodworking in the high ceilings of the house. “Scott.”

He smiled at her and grabbed her hand. “Yeah.”

And the house suddenly became their home.

It’s been helpful living in the same place. She can rely on him to help her out with whatever she needs. Sometimes she needs a lot, like runs to the grocery store for whatever it is she’s craving that night, or a massage on the spot in her back that consistently aches, or help getting into the bath because she isn’t used to the way her stomach now rounds out. Sometimes she only needs a reassuring word here and there or a smile to get her through the day. 

Scott likes their life for now. Getting ready for the baby and setting up the nursery and their house that apparently they now share and will continue to share for at least eighteen more years. Tessa’s there through it all and he’s there through it all and they’re together, just like they always have been.

But not the way he wants. They’re never together the way he wants, though. And if he ever thought a baby would change that, well. He still separates from her at the end of the night, heading into his own bedroom and she into hers. Never together the way he wants.

~

“We need to pick a name,” Tessa says one night over dinner. He’s made them this chicken meal, one similar to the dish her mom and grandmother used to make.

Scott scoffs and shakes his head. “We still have time.”

She raises her eyebrow at him, challenging the statement. “It’ll come faster than you think. That’s what my brother told me. One day you’re childless, then the next is _here you go, time to take care of another human being_.”

“Do they at least give you a handbook?” Scott teases and Tessa throws a piece of bread at him.

“What do you think of Tallulah?”

“Absolutely not,” Scott says firmly. “Do you want our kid getting rocks thrown at them on the playground?”

Tessa shakes her head. “I’m pretty sure that doesn’t happen anymore.”

“Yeah,” he says. “It doesn’t happen because no one names their kids something like _Tallulah_ ,” Scott spits the name out like it’s dishonoured his family, or something.

Tessa places her fork down gently on the table and stares at him. “You pick something, then,” and the stress that seeps into her voice causes Scott to stand up and walk over to her.

He places a kiss on the top of her head. “We’ll figure something out,” he calmly says. She glares up at him and he sighs. “I’ll go get the laptop and we can start googling, how does that sound?”

The smile Tessa gives him is worth the three hours they spend arguing over names.

~

They spend a lot of time arguing over things. Usually Scott and Tessa are so in synch it’s scary, able to read each other’s minds and finish the other’s sentences. But ever since the whole baby debacle (he really needs to stop calling it that), they can’t seem to agree on anything.

_No, we aren’t putting them in hockey, do you know how bad concussions are?_

__

_They don’t need to be vegan, Tessa, that’s all bull shit and you know it._

__

_We can’t put the crib in the corner, I read that it leads to more accidents._

__

_No, I don’t know how much pain you’re going through, for the millionth time I’m sorry for accidentally knocking you up._

__

_Maybe if we weren’t so stupid, this wouldn’t have happened._

The arguments get worse and worse, leading up to one night that ends up with a hairbrush being thrown at his head. 

“Just fuck off, Scott!” Tessa yells at him. “God, you really make me want to hate you sometimes.”

He scoffs. “Why are you so fucking infuriating lately?”

“Hmm, I don’t know, maybe it’s the fact that I have a human being growing inside of me!” Tessa yells and the tone of her voice knocks the wind out of him more than the volume. “Do you even want to be here?”

Scott stands there with his mouth opening and closing like a fish. “How could you say that?”

Tessa looks down and huffs. “It’s not like you wanted this, Scott. We didn’t quite plan to have a surprise fuck after winning the goddamn Olympics and end up with a child.”

“Just because it wasn’t planned, doesn’t mean I don’t want this. That I don’t want to be here,” his voice is soft and quiet now, slowly breaking through the tension in the room. He takes a step forward, calculating his steps to make sure he doesn’t scare Tessa off like she’s a wounded animal. “I want this.” _I want you_ goes unsaid because he’s been trying to sort through so many emotions lately that he doesn’t even know what means what.

Tessa lets a tear slip down her face. “I’m scared,” she whispers and Scott has to force himself not to whimper. “What if we can’t do this? We don’t exactly have the most conventional set up.”

Scott chuckles. “You could say that again.”

She smiles softly and glances up at him, where he’s ended up standing toe to toe with her. “Are we setting this kid up for failure?”

“Hey,” Scott hushes her and places a hand on her cheek. She nuzzles her face into his palm. “When have we ever failed at anything?”

“Sochi.”

“I thought we agreed to never bring that up,” Scott raises an eye brow and pinches her ear lobe lightly.

Tessa giggles. “Sorry.”

Scott breathes out a long breath and tips her head up so she’s looking him in the eyes. “We can do this. I know we can.”

“Together,” she says their mantra like they’re about to skate a program, and not because they’re convincing the other that they can raise a child together. 

Scott kisses her forehead and doesn’t argue. “Together.”

~

Everything has been going so smoothly after their last fight. So when it doesn’t, it feels like the world starts to come crashing down around him. 

“Scott,” he hears a faint voice around him, shaking his body lightly.

“What?” he grumbles, fresh out of sleep, and pries his eyes open to see Tessa hovering over him. The look on her face is what causes him to sit up quickly and reach for her. “What’s happening?”

“Something’s wrong,” Tessa practically cries and Scott’s hand immediately go to her stomach. “I don’t know what it is, but it’s not right. I-” she’s cut off with a sob ripping from her throat and Scott wants to throw up. 

“Okay,” he brushes his fingers across her forehead and down her temple, her cheeks, her neck. “What do you need? What should we do?”

Tessa cries harder. “I don’t know, Scott.”

He makes the executive decision to grab the car keys from the front hutch and drive her to the hospital. The next hour is a flurry of speeding through red lights (because it’s three in the morning and Tessa’s crying and his baby is hurting), haphazardly parking the car and running up to the hospital with Tessa scooped in his arms.

Doctors flutter around her, checking all of her vitals along with the baby’s. When they place the ultrasound machine on her stomach and a little heartbeat is heard, quick and quiet, Scott lets out the longest huff of air. He kisses Tessa’s forehead and mutters about how it’s all going to be okay.

“We have to induce labour and go in for an emergency C-section,” the doctor tells them, a soft expression on her face, and Scott knows it’s because this news isn’t great.

Tessa flicks her eyes from the doctor, to Scott, and back again. “But it’s only been twenty-nine weeks. I can’t have the baby yet,” her voice is so frantic that it sends Scott’s heart reeling.

“I’m sorry love,” the doctor places her hand on Tessa’s shoulder. “The baby is having complications, there’s signs of amniotic fluid in the uterus, and if we don’t deliver then your baby’s lungs will fill up and, well…”

“They’ll drown,” Scott says the inevitable. It’s either deliver now and hope for the best, or let their baby stay inside and, and. He can’t bring himself to think about it, grabs onto Tessa’s hand so tight instead, so he can block out the thoughts.

She looks up at him, tears slipping down her face. “Scott,” Tessa whispers his name like it’s the answer to all of their problems. He wishes it was. 

“It’s going to be okay,” Scott kisses her forehead and leaves his lips there, runs his hand up and down her arm and holds her so tight.

Scott knows this whole scenario has been unconventional, but this is his child and he loves Tessa so fucking much he thinks he’d do anything to make sure that she’s okay. But if this all goes downhill, she’s not going to be okay. And he’s not going to be okay. And if having this baby would completely ruin them, then not having this baby will slaughter the both of them.

The nurse hands him a ridiculous blue outfit for him to wear into the operating room, along with a mask and hair net. He watches them prep Tessa for the emergency C-section, hates how he is forced to stand in the corner of the room and only touch her with his eyes rather than his hands, his mouth, his fingers. Tessa looks at him the whole time, as they prick needles and tubes into her, as they dress her in a hospital gown and tie her hair back. 

“Promise me,” Tessa grabs his hand before they place the anesthesia tubes under her nose. “Promise me that you will always be here. I can’t do this without you.”

Scott thinks that maybe she’s talking about every possibility, if they end up with a child, if they lose their baby, if she, if she… well. He holds onto her tight. “I promise. Together, always together.”

The doctor nods and they place the tubes under her nose. Tessa closes her eyes tight and Scott watches a single tear slip out from her scrunched lids. He swipes it away with his thumb before it can travel very far. 

Instead of watching the surgeons, Scott keeps his eyes on Tessa’s face the whole time. He watches as she softens under the drugs slipping through her system, as her pupils dilate and her hand slips from his grip.

Scott’s mind wanders for a moment, to the time in 2008 where Tessa was left alone in an operating room probably much similar to this one. When another part of her body was cut open and stitched back together, without him there. He tilts his head in shame and thinks that for the rest of their lives, through anything and everything, he promises that he’ll be there with her.

And maybe that’s why Tessa asked him the question, before the smoke and fog cluttered her mind. Because he’s left her in the dust before, when she’s been in pain and confused and healing from heartbreak. They had to go through therapy after therapy session, had to slowly figure out how to mend all the broken pieces back together. How to be _them_ again. But never again is he going to leave her. He promised.

“It’s a girl,” Scott hears the doctor say, and it’s the first time he flips his gaze to the area of Tessa’s body that’s cut open.

A tiny baby, too small to even look real, is pulled from the lump of flesh and blood. The baby doesn’t make a sound, just lays in the doctor’s hands. Scott cries.

“It’s a girl,” he mumbles into Tessa’s ear and kisses her temple. 

She turns her head and looks at him with these eyes that won’t even focus. “A girl?” Tessa asks groggily. “So it’s not a boy like you thought.” 

Scott chuckles through his tears. “Yeah.”

“We never got time to pick a name,” Tessa mumbles. “She needs a name.”

Scott soothes her, runs his fingers through her hair. “It’s okay, Tess.”

With the way the doctors rush around the room and hover over their baby, he’s not sure if it’s okay though. They take her away in this small glass cart, and Scott barely even gets to see her before she’s gone. Tessa doesn’t even get to look at her once. He looks down at her, looks at her green eyes sliding out of focus and the small smile on her face and prays to whoever is listening that it will be okay. Because, honestly, he’s not sure. Scott doesn’t like being unsure.

~

They name her Guinevere because Tessa’s always been into names that are a little too much (if their unsuccessful name picking session indicated anything). Scott immediately shortens it to Gwen and, he will never tell Tess, refuses to use her full name unless she’s in trouble and he needs to be a firm and stern sounding father (and he’s a father now, _holy shit_ ).

But looking at Gwen, at her tiny hands and tiny feet and tiny head, all encased in this glass box like she’s on display, Scott thinks he could never be mad at her. He’s been staring at her for an hour straight, taking in all of her features. Her chest heaves quickly, lifting up and down so fast that his heart breaks each time he can hear the little rasp in her chest. He is so in love, has fallen for the girl in the matter of minutes.

Her eyes haven’t opened yet, so he can’t tell if she’s got the piercing green colour of her mother, or the hazel of his own. The doctor told him it wouldn’t be for days, maybe even weeks, that she’d open her eyes. Scott’s never been patient.

When Tessa wakes up from her nap, her head is still groggy and her eyes are bleary, purple bags settling underneath them like she’s just been through the war. Scott feels like they have. 

“How is she?” Tess asks softly, immediately grabs his hand which is resting on the bed beside her. 

Scott finally tears his eyes away from Gwen to look at Tessa. “She’s a fighter,” is all he says. 

“I just wish I could hold her.”

 _Yeah,_ Scott thinks. _Me too_.

Scott wishes a lot of things. He wishes that Tessa would call him her own, he wishes he could reach over with his neck and kiss her, right on the lips. He wishes that she’d let him slide a ring on her finger and be able to say to everyone, for the rest of his life, how much he loves her. He wishes that she’d smile at him the way she smiles at puppies and freshly bloomed flowers and baby onesies that have stupid sayings on them.

He looks at Gwen, and even though he wishes so many things, if he could make one of them come true, it would be that their little girl is safe.


	2. year one.

Tessa’s always known, in the deepest parts of her imagination, that if her and Scott were to ever, by some wild change in the universe, have a child together, that they would be the strongest person the world has ever seen.

When she was eleven and on a kick of watching TLC shows like _A Baby Story_ and others revolving around what her life could very well possibly look like in the future, she thought about Scott a lot. The break up was still fresh in her mind (and twenty nine year old Tessa shakes her head at how lovelorn she used to be) and skating with him every day wasn’t really helpful. So she’d imagine future Tessa and future Scott, raising kids together and getting married and living in a big house just outside of London with three golden retrievers.

It was only a thing for a year or so, Tessa arriving at his house in the backseat of her mom’s car, waiting to pick up Alma and Scott. Whenever she’d see him, her stomach would start flipping into obnoxious cartwheels, similar to the kinds she liked to do in her grassy yard in the middle of summer. Scott’s smile is otherworldly, and she thought it should be against the law considering how attacked she felt whenever he shot the expression her way. 

“Whoop, sorry kiddo,” he whispered into her one day at the rink when he tripped and she stumbled along with him. 

“Kiddo?” she asked, looking up at him with big eyes, her heart beating so rapidly in her chest. 

“Uh,” Scott’s eyes frantically roamed her face. “Is that okay? If I call you kiddo? Because, well, I’m officially a teenager now and you’re still younger.”

Tessa stuck her tongue out at him and he grinned so wide she felt blinded. 

So yeah, when Tessa was younger she envisioned a life with Scott, a future with him. She’d dance around her bedroom, holding her arms out and pretending Scott was there. Except she wasn’t practicing for their latest program, but rather would hum her favourite song at the time and pretend they were having their first dance as a married couple. 

And not only would she picture their wedding day, but she’d picture their children. She was only a child herself, could barely even comprehend how babies are made in the first place. But nonetheless, she’d hold one of her dolls in her arms and pretend Scott was beside her, his arm wrapped around her waist like he does at the rink, staring down at their imaginary child. 

The feeling disappeared quickly when she caught him making out with some girl in Waterloo in the back of the Aud. She promised herself that she’d never stoop so low again, to the point where she’s pretending to dance with him at their wedding or holding their baby or using the back of her hand to practice kissing his lips.

It worked, quite well actually. Until Canton in 2013. Until PyeongChang.

~

 _February 2018_

“I can’t believe we won,” Scott huffs out as they’re making their way to her door. “It’s not going to sink in anytime soon, so I hope you get used to it,” he grins at her. 

Tessa smiles back. “Don’t worry, I’ll never get used to it.”

Scott laughs and Tessa giggles and she leans into his side where he’s got an arm wrapped around her waist. She feels warm and a sense of calm washes over her, knowing that through this madness there is one constant; Scott. 

“Well, I guess here is where I bid you goodnight,” Scott says once they stop in front of her door. 

She doesn’t want to say goodnight though. Tessa looks Scott up and down and doesn’t want him to leave her sight for the next twenty years. And maybe it’s the adrenaline coursing through her from the biggest win of their careers, or maybe it’s the feelings and emotions that have been building up since their comeback began. Tessa’s not sure what it is, but she stares at Scott and asks in a soft voice, “Do you want to come inside?”

Scott inhales sharply and squeezes her hand tightly. “Tessa.”

It’s only her name, but it’s enough of an answer that she unlocks the door with her key card and pulls him inside, holding onto his hand like he’s the rock that’s going to bring her down to earth. 

They stare at each other once they get the door closed. Tessa thinks in the back of her mind that Kaitlyn isn’t going to be back tonight, how she talked to her earlier about staying with Andrew to try and keep intact their Olympic experience… or something like that.

“Kaitlyn’s not coming back.”

Scott licks his lips. “Okay.”

She’s not sure why she’s voiced the thought, but Scott knows. Tessa knows that he does because after staring at each other for another beat, he leans in and kisses her. Her mind flashes back to 2013, when they both made a mistake she used to wish with her whole being she could take back. His mouth is more experienced now (she’s not sure if that’s a good thing for her pleasure in the moment, or if it leaves a sour taste in her mouth because that means he’s had practice). Scott rips her apart piece by piece with just his lips.

He reaches down and palms at her ass, causing Tessa to gasp and allowing Scott to slip his tongue into her mouth. She feels like she’s on fire.

There was one time, when she was fourteen and in her family’s cottage, when she accidentally grabbed the wrong end of the marshmallow roasting wire and burned her hand pretty bad. Tessa thinks that burn holds nothing in comparison to the way her body alights when Scott touches her, presses against her, moves his mouth to her neck and _sucks_.

“Fuck, Tessa,” he groans into her neck when she slots her leg in between his. She rolls her hips and feels him, hard and hot against the thin layer of her leggings. “Bed.”

Tessa pulls away and scurries to the bed, pulling her Canada sweatshirt off as she walks. Before she can leap onto the mattress, Scott grabs her hips from behind. His hand slides over her stomach, fingers dancing across her skin and abs. He circles one finger over her bellybutton ring and she inhales sharply. Ever since she got the thing, it’s been a weird source of pleasure for her. No one knows that except her own hand and the midnight sky, so the fact that Scott immediately searches for it. Well. She doesn’t know what to do other than let out this whimper that fills the air. 

“Scott,” her voice sounds so fucked that it heats her cheeks. “Touch me.”

She hears him growl into her ear before slipping a few fingers past the waistband of her leggings. The way her chest heaves sends her head reeling. When his index finger brushes over her clit (how does he know exactly where it is?) her body jerks in surprise. 

“Woah,” Scott chuckles in her ear. Tessa just squeezes her eyes shut if only to minimize the amount of pleasure coursing through her body when he does the motion again. She wants to cry it feels so good. “Maybe we should get you on the bed, huh?”

Tessa doesn’t argue, just lets Scott handle her body like he always has. Once she’s laying on the bed Scott stares at her face. “What?” she asks him, brushing her hands over her face in case there’s something stray floating around on her skin.

Scott smiles so soft, it’s the same look he gave her standing atop the podium. “Nothing.”

Tessa gets flustered with how he’s staring at her. He’s not supposed to make her _feel_ anything. She’s not supposed to have a mantra repeating in her head of _fuck, I think I’m in love with your dumb ass_. So she grabs his hand and sucks two of his fingers in her mouth. Scott’s mouth drops open and his eyes visibly darken. He pulls them out from her lips with a _pop_ and she bats her lashes at him innocently.

“Are you trying to kill me?” Scott asks. 

Tessa smirks and squirms under him. “No, but if you don’t get those,” she gestures to his fingers, “in me soon, you’re going to kill _me_.”

Scott just nods his head and helps get her out of her pants. When he does, he slides his fingers up her slit. Tessa gasps and slams her head back against the pillow. His thumb circles her clit so slowly it should be considered torture, and his index finger slips into her. Scott’s face is so close to hers so she leans up and kisses him. 

Eventually, after a few failed attempts, Tessa gets him out of his own pants and shirt (he has to take his fingers out of her and she debates just keeping the red Canada shirt on so she doesn’t have to feel the loss). Her fingers nimbly circle his dick and she pumps her hand up and down him at the same pace as he’s fucking his fingers into her. 

“Oh god,” she barely breathes out. “Mmm, Scott.”

“Yeah,” he whispers into her ear and bites gently on her lobe. 

Her foot taps on his bum. “Not enough, I need more.”

Scott pulls his head from her neck and looks at her. “Are you sure?”

Tessa huffs. “I’m not some sixteen year old virgin, Scott. I want you to fuck me.”

A growl, so territorial and primal it scares her a bit, rips from his chest and he’s slipping his fingers out of her. “Condom?”

“No,” she states so firm, holding his cheek in one hand. He’s sweaty, his skin dripping similar to after a long training session or a grueling program. She’s always found him hot like this, though. “I’m on birth control, I want to feel you.”

(In hindsight, she should have made so many better decisions in her life. This being one of them.) 

“Fuck,” Scott murmurs and reaches down to grab his dick. His eyes flick up to her own and she nods her head slightly before he pushes into her. 

“Oh my god,” Tessa moans out and tips her head back. Her calf aches with the way her legs clench up and she’s never felt so full in her entire life. It’s not even just the size of Scott, but rather it’s just _Scott_. Filling her skin and her cunt and her heart, all so well it somehow feels familiar even though she’s never felt him like this before.

He pumps into her, quick and hard. It’s so much and not enough at the same time. She wants to lose control but there’s this nagging voice in the back of her head telling her how this is going to fuck everything up. She wants it to go away. 

“Don’t freak out,” Tessa says to Scott and he pulls his head from her neck and scrunches his eyebrows up in confusion. She shakily breathes out and grabs the hand that’s resting at her hip bone. There’s a moment where she second guesses herself, but it’s Scott. So she brings his hand up and rests it at the base of her throat. 

He looks even more confused, so she takes it upon herself to gently press his fingers against her throat. She inhales sharply and Scott’s eyes widen. “Tess.”

“Don’t freak out,” she repeats herself and Scott doesn’t. Instead he pauses for a moment and experimentally wraps his fingers around her throat before pressing down gently. Her eyes roll to the back of her head, and when he presses into her once again the nagging voice is gone. 

Scott fucks her like he skates, with so much fire and passion she can feel it in every crevice of her skin. And with his hand pressing against her pulse point, she can’t even think. Her brain is just a constant loop of _Scott Scott Scott_. It feels like he’s everywhere. 

When she comes it hits her like the strength of a thousand oceans, like the burn of a thousand suns. She chokes on her saliva and moans, loud and long, and Scott presses down lightly against the skin at the base of her throat. Her body jerks, squirming under him because she doesn’t even know what to do with herself. She’s never felt like this in her entire life. 

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Scott groans above her and pauses in her and she can _feel_ when he cums. It turns her on so much she thinks she could go again, could start the process of sinning all over again. 

She thinks she can hear him mumble a low and quiet _I love you_. Tessa doesn’t know whether or not that’s what she wants to hear. 

~

There’s been a lot of waiting, which usually is her forte when it comes to the two of them. But Tessa’s skin is itching with anxiety lately, especially whenever she enters through the hospital doors. 

“Hi baby,” she whispers once she settles beside Gwen’s cot. “Mommy’s here, love.”

Gwen’s bigger now, not by much, but compared to when they first pulled her out of Tessa, it’s progress. The hospital released Tess two weeks ago after her incisions healed and the likelihood of infection declined by at least eighty percent. She’s been feeling physically stronger, is able to lift herself up and out of bed in the mornings (or in the afternoons when fatigue over takes her and she has to lay down for a nap). But emotionally… that’s a whole other story. 

Every night Tessa goes to sleep in her own bed. She closes her eyes tight and wills away the images of Gwen’s tiny body, fighting so hard to breathe and beat. But every night, she wakes up after a nightmare. The reoccurring one that completely breaks her heart in half is one of a doctor pulling Tessa and Scott aside, telling them that Gwen didn’t make it through the night. After being ripped from sleep, usually in a hot sweat and with tears leaking from her eyes, she slips out of her own bed and into Scott’s. 

The first time she did it she was sobbing and Scott let her snuggle into his chest and drench his skin with her tears. Her whole body shook against his and his tired but frantic eyes watched her every move. But now, after two weeks and fourteen nights, Scott’s started to leave the other side of the bed untucked for her to slide into. He just opens his arms when she does and kisses the tears from her cheeks. Tessa thinks maybe she should just start sleeping in his bed. 

“Hey,” a voice speaks behind her and Tessa turns her body to see Scott standing in the doorway to the NICU. 

“Hi,” Tessa smiles and opens her arm. Scott walks over and settles next to her, with her hand landing on his hip and her face nuzzling against his side. “She looks bigger, huh?”

Scott nods his head. “Yeah.”

Since the night weeks ago, when Tessa felt her entire body stand on edge with the feeling of _wrong, something is wrong_ , Scott’s been the greatest he’s ever been to her. Standing by her side and asking what she needs, staying up late and getting her through the nightmares, skipping out on his morning run so that he can check up on Gwen in the hospital while she sleeps in. It says something, considering all of the shit that he’s helped get her through. 

Tessa hasn’t had time the past few months to sort through her feelings, but she supposes if she did, there’d be a high likelihood of her being a little bit in love with Scott. 

“Has she opened her eyes yet?” Scott asks and Tessa shakes her head. 

“No.” He’s been anxious, for some reason, about Gwen opening her eyes. Tessa’s not sure why, maybe he’s just genuinely curious as to what colour they are. 

Scott hums above her and grips the back of her neck, lacing his fingers through her hair. She leans into the touch and lets his fingers lightly massage the skin there. For a second, just a small moment, her skin lights on fire with memories from months ago. But when her daughter squirms in front of her, the thoughts wash away. 

“Hi Gwen,” Scott squats down so his eyes are level with her tiny face. “Hello baby doll.”

Tessa smiles and presses her fingers against the glass lightly. She’s felt Gwen’s skin only a few times. Every couple of days, the doctor slowly pulls the baby from her bed and places her bare skin against Tessa’s. They called it kangaroo care, and apparently it’s supposed to help Gwen grow. The contact is healthy for her development, and Tessa doesn’t mind because it means she gets to hold her daughter. 

There was once, on a Tuesday night, when Tessa walked into the hospital with her mother and found Scott in the corner of the NICU, with his shirt off and a sleepy Gwen nestled against his chest. She’ll never tell anyone this, but she had to swipe away a few tears after seeing the scene. 

She’s pulled from her reminiscing thoughts when Scott grabs at her knee and gasps. “Holy shit, Tessa.”

“Watch your language around our daughter,” Tessa teases but he tightens his grip on her. “Ow, Scott, what’s-”

She looks up and cuts herself off when she sees _green green green_. Gwen’s looking at her, these beautiful and small eyes staring into her soul. Her heart quickens and her throat chokes up with tears. She’s got Tessa’s eyes. 

“They’re green,” Scott breathes out and presses his nose against the glass, his breath fogging up the cot. “Tessa, they’re green.”

She laughs wetly. “Yeah, they are.”

Scott looks up at her with the dopiest grin on his face. “She’s got your eyes.” Tessa nods and Scott giggles, he fucking _giggles_. “Good.”

She’s not sure what that means though. _Good_ Scott says, like his eyes aren’t the most beautiful thing Tessa’s ever seen in her life. 

(And no offence to Scott, but when Gwen locks her eyes with Tessa’s, she thinks maybe Scott’s eyes are the second most beautiful thing she’s ever seen in her life.)

~

Gwen grows stronger and bigger every single day. The doctor is optimistic, but Tessa stays stoic. It’s hard because she is so in love with Gwen, but she suppresses it all. There’s a guilt deep down inside her gut that sits there every time Tessa thinks about not getting attached. Gwen is her _child_ , the greatest thing to ever happen to her. But she can’t get the nightmares out of her mind, or the anxiety that settles on her chest whenever her phone rings or she walks into the hospital and there’s a doctor or nurse beside Gwen’s cot. So she tries not to get too attached. 

Until one day when they start to take the tubes from Gwen’s torso. She’s able to breathe on her own now with little to no help, so they find all the machines unnecessary. Gwen squirms around on top of the pink blanket and Tessa looks down on her. 

“You can hold her,” the nurse smiles and picks Gwen up before placing her into Tessa’s arms. 

She looks down at her little girl and smiles. She hasn’t held her like this yet, without all the plastic and extra materials keeping her alive. Tessa can feel her skin against her own, can feel her tiny and rapid heart beating against Tess where her chest rests against her own side.

“Hi baby girl,” Tessa whispers softly and Gwen’s eyes immediately snap to look at Tessa. “You’re so beautiful.”

She turns to look at Scott but he’s not there. His mom asked him to come over and help with a leak in her roof, so Scott missed out on the morning visiting time. But, Tessa supposes, she’s going to have to get used to Scott not consistently being by her side. They aren’t together. The one common bond between them has always been skating, and now it’s the little girl falling asleep in her arms. She only sleeps in his bed because it’s the only place where she can. 

Tessa’s going to have to get used to shared responsibilities and co-parenting, which is what they agreed on months ago when their lives were first flipped upside down. Even though she has to get used to it doesn’t mean that she doesn’t miss his presence by his side when Gwen reaches up and grabs at Tessa. 

She brings her finger down and Gwen clenches her tiny fist around her index. Her heart triples in size and fuck not getting attached. Because anything can happen and every single day people run the risk of losing those they love. So Tessa’s going to latch onto her child and not let go, because why the fuck not. Gwen is perfect and precious and _alive_ , so Tessa’s going to love her with her entire being while she can. 

~

It’s three weeks later when Tessa’s rushing around the house trying to get everything ready. 

“Scott!” she yells from the hallway. “Do you have the car seat?”

He turns the corner and in one hand is holding this hot pink blanket that Tessa’s worried is going to blind Gwen’s eyes, and in the other is the car seat. “Yes, kiddo.” Scott places the car seat on the ground and walks towards Tessa, places his hands on her cheeks when he gets close enough. “You gotta relax.”

Tessa breathes in deeply. “I just want everything to be perfect.”

Scott laughs and places a kiss on her forehead. “Of course you do.”

They pick Gwen up from the hospital and Tessa watches as Scott carefully places her in the car seat. She’s fast asleep, her eyelids indicating that her green orbs are not going to make an appearance anytime soon. Tessa sits beside her in the backseat and runs her finger along Gwen’s cheek, her fist curled up around the blanket (which she hasn’t let go of, so maybe she was wrong about her original distaste). Scott peaks at them at every red light and each time Tessa smiles softly and Scott winks. 

“And here is where you will be sleeping, little girl.” Scott shows her around the entire house, pointing out different places and areas. Gwen sleeps through the whole thing, but Scott continues because _maybe she can still hear me, Tess_. “I hope you like it, your mom kind of went overboard with the pink.”

Tessa scoffs and hits his arm. “Shut up.”

Scott gasps and reaches his hand into the car seat to cover one of Gwen’s ears. “Watch your language around our child, please.”

She laughs and reaches in, unbuckles Gwen and pulls her up to rest her on Tessa’s chest. Scott comes up behind them and rests his chin on Tessa’s shoulder. His fingers brush against the small tuft of black hair growing on the baby’s head.

“I’m so in love,” Tessa whispers when Gwen snuggles her head into her neck. 

Scott kisses Tessa’s temple before mumbling a quiet, “Me too.”

Tessa wonders for a moment if he’s just talking about Gwen. 

~

They get a hang of this whole co-parenting thing really quick. Tessa thinks maybe it’s because over the past twenty years the reason their relationship has lasted is because of the constant communication skills that have been driven into them. She remembers once, when they were fifteen and seventeen.

It had been after a long training week and she was exhausted. So when Scott decided to push her buttons, she wasn’t having it. 

“What colour are you going next?” Scott teases and pulls on her newly dyed hair, her head jerking back with the motion.

She hits his chest, actually smacks him hard and the sound reverberates around the rink. “Fuck off, Scott.”

“Woah,” he holds his hands up and steps away from her. “What’s your deal?”

Tessa huffs and rolls her eyes. “My deal is that you’re being a dick.”

“It’s just a joke,” Scott says firmly and crosses his arms. “You don’t have to be a bitch about it?”

Tessa snaps her neck around and stares at him. “Excuse me?” Never in all their years of being partners had Scott ever called her a bitch.

“You heard me.”

She wants to cry. It’s stupid and she’s probably just so exhausted that it’s why her eyes tear up, but nonetheless Tessa scrubs a fist over her eyes, like she’s five years old again and her sister’s stolen her favourite doll. 

“Why are you so mean?”

Scott laughs. “Are you crying?” Tessa pouts and watches as his face softens. “Oh. You are.”

“I hate when you do that!” she shouts and walks away from him, decides to sit on a nearby bench and look at her chipped nail polish rather than his apologetic face. 

Scott scoffs above her. “Do what?”

She looks up and glares at him. “Act like you’re better than me, stronger than me. It’s bad enough Marina does it.”

And there it is.

Tessa’s been keeping it all under wraps for the past few months, how Marina criticizes her and praises Scott and each time it feels like a stab to her heart. She knows how gifted Scott is, how much harder she has to push herself to be at the same level as him. But the constant reminders are not good for her health. 

“What do you mean?” Scott asks and his voice is right beside her now. 

Tessa sighs and scoots over for him to sit down on the bench. He does, brushes his shoulder against hers as if to reassure Tessa with his presence. “Marina is always telling you how amazing you are, and whenever she talks to me it’s like she picks me apart. I’m never good enough for her.”

“That’s not true,” Scott firmly says beside her and wraps his arm around her shoulders. “You’re amazing, Tessa.”

She sniffles and buries her face in his shoulder. “Tell Marina that.”

He does. The next morning at practice when Marina picks apart her twizzles, Scott defends her and picks himself apart instead, highlights all the areas Tessa has been excelling in lately. Marina stands there in shock and tells them to run the program again. Tess smiles and takes his hand, skates to center ice to start from the beginning. 

So yeah, they’ve always somehow learned to communicate in their own way. Scott can read her like a book, and Tessa knows what he’s thinking after just one glance. It’s helpful, that they have this base to help them raise a child together. 

Tessa wishes that there was more, though. She’s always wished that though. 

~

“When do you think she’s going to start walking?” Scott asks one morning, the sun barely risen over the horizon.

Gwen’s sat in her high chair beside the table, watching Tessa and Scott eat their breakfasts (coffee and toast for Tessa, cereal for Scott), gnawing at her tiny fist. She’s gotten so much bigger, is practically growing like a weed now. But she’s still quite small, has just started holding her head up on her own without Tessa gently cradling it in her elbow or Scott resting it on his chest. 

Tessa scoffs. “She’s four months old, Scott.”

“Yeah, and?” he shrugs and raises an eyebrow at Tessa.

She shakes her head. “Do you know anything about babies?”

“You’re the one who made me read that stupid parenting book.”

“Did you actually read the whole thing?” Tessa challenges and Scott looks down at his cereal bowl without saying a thing. “That’s what I thought.”

Scott rolls his eyes and grabs at one of Gwen’s feet. “Not my fault this little bugger decided to make a surprise appearance a little early.”

Now that they are in the clear in terms of Gwen’s health (the doctor checked up last week and told she and Scott how well she’s been doing, seems to be one of the happiest and healthiest babies he knows), they make a few jokes about her early arrival. Tessa can’t believe that four months ago she simultaneously was experiencing the best and worst times of her life. 

She remembers her mom asking Tessa about it, with Gwen sat in her glass cot and Tessa staring at her. 

“Does this beat the gold medal?”

Tessa smiled softly at her mom because she knew how rough it was for her. How rough it was for Scott, too. On top of their already messy situation, they had the downward spiral of their daughter’s health thrown in as well. But Tessa wouldn’t change it for the world. “I could win any gold medal ever, and they wouldn’t hold a tenth of what she means to me.”

She’s been doing that a lot, thinking about what Gwen means to her. Sometimes her mind flashes back to when she found out she was pregnant, how her stomach sunk to her toes and she threw up all the contents of her stomach into the toilet. There were so many thoughts that ran around her head, how this was going to permanently mess not only her up, but Scott and her relationship with him. She cried and screamed and threw the damn test at the wall because _why her_.

Tessa believes in fate, though, and she knows Scott does too. With how many times he’s looked at her, touched his cross necklace and told her how lucky they are to have one another. She’s believed in fate since she was seven and he was nine and they somehow were matched together in a tiny rink in tiny Ilderton with tiny Tessa and Scott. She’s believed in fate since having surgery, twice, being cut open and still able to continue on with her career. She’s believed in fate since coming back to competition and somehow having an undefeated season along with their second and third gold medal wins. Tessa believes in fate every time she looks at Scott and he smiles at her. They were always meant to be together. 

The time, though, when Tessa believed in fate the most was the first time she laid eyes on Gwen, groggy and out of it in her hospital bed, staring at the small body attached to so many wires she couldn’t even count. Because even though her becoming was unconventional, Tessa fully believes in her heart that they were meant to have her. She was meant to be theirs. 

Tessa’s pulled out of her thoughts by the sound of a small giggle to her right. She snaps her head over to look at her daughter and sees a smile on her face. “Did she just?”

“I think she just laughed,” Scott says in a voice that’s as stunned as Tessa feels. 

“What did you do?”

“Uh…” Scott trails off and Tessa glares at him.

“What did you do?” she repeats in a stern voice. 

Scott mumbles something and Tessa raises her eyebrows at him. He sighs. “I threw a Frosted Flake at her.”

“What?!”

“It was soggy and tiny and it landed on her onesie, she’s fine!” he rushes out in defense. Scott’s been doing that a lot, trying to play funny jokes on Tessa with Gwen. She never thought she’d be a protective mother, but. “Obviously she liked it, she laughed for the first time ever.”

Tessa stares at him for a moment before saying in a flat voice, “Do it again.”

“What?” he says with his eyes wide.

“Do it again,” she repeats herself. 

Scott slowly reaches into his bowl and pulls out a piece of his cereal, looking at Tessa the whole time like she’s testing him. She doesn’t stop him, and when he lightly flicks the piece towards Gwen, landing it on her chest, she giggles so hard Tessa can’t help but laugh along. Scott starts cackling too and then they’re all laughing together, bending over in hysterics at listening to their daughter laugh for the first time. Tessa slots this memory into the back of her mind as one for the history books, right alongside Vancouver and PyeongChang and the first ever memory she has of Scott.

~

Tessa slots a lot of firsts into the back of her mind.

The first time Gwen responds to her name is on a Wednesday evening. Tessa’s sitting on the couch while Scott’s out getting groceries. Gwen is playing on one of her many mats they have for her, rolling around from her stomach to her back, again and again. Tessa vaguely watches her while clicking around on her laptop. She’s picked up a few fashion gigs here and there, picking out different outfit combinations and prediction trends that she thinks might be in style soon. It’s helpful and something to do while cooped up in the house. 

They don’t go out a lot, is the thing. Tessa’s terrified of the world seeing Gwen, of someone taking a picture and leaking it to the Toronto Star or Breakfast Television or something like that. She’s seen people speculating, fans wondering why they’ve been so isolated and it seems like the only things Tessa’s been posting on social media are old pictures. But it seems like no one’s found out about Gwen, which makes her laugh thinking about all the people who conspired after the Olympics about Tessa and Scott’s lives, that they’re hiding a marriage and three children. If only they could see her now, staring at her daughter, the ever perfect picture of motherhood. 

“Guinevere,” she doesn’t really use her full name much, only when she’s feeling extra loved up or extra frustrated, which must be confusing for the small baby. “Gwen, love.”

Gwen turns and looks at Tessa and she gasps. The baby smiles and cocks her head to the side in question. Tessa waves and Gwen lifts her arm up in an attempt to wave back. When Scott gets through the door and asks why she’s crying, she just shakes her head and smiles. 

~

On Gwen’s first Christmas, they go to his family’s house for Christmas Eve, seeing as they are more religious and like to attend mass whereas hers is more about the gathering of loved ones. She stands in the pew and keeps her eye on Gwen, carefully held up by Scott each time they rise and each time they sit. She’s got this black sparkly dress on and the velvet material made her cry at first but _gosh darn Scott, she looks so fucking cute_. 

Her heart swells up with pride when they walk down the aisle to receive communion and the rest of the church coos at them. She isn’t worried about their news getting out into the world, Tessa practically knows the names of everyone in the small church. 

They all head back to Alma and Joe’s house after mass and open presents together. Gwen gets so many gifts wrapped in big bows and shiny paper. Tessa doesn’t know what to do with them all at the end of the night while packing up her Acura (they share the cars sometimes, but sometimes she finds Scott driving Gwen around in her car because apparently _it’s safer_ , whatever that means). She feels immense gratitude for his family, and when Alma comes up to her at the end of the night and hugs her for what seems like ten minutes, her chest feels like it could burst open. 

Their family (because that’s what they are now, a family, in the most unconventional sense) heads to Kate Virtue’s house in the early mornings of Christmas Day, arriving just as pancakes are being flipped and cinnamon rolls are pulled out of the oven. Gwen is scooped up by Tessa’s mom immediately, and she’s passed around the whole room. Everyone loves her, especially in her Santa onesie that Tessa forced Scott to put her in that morning (he pouted, she smiled, it all worked out in the end). 

“You’re staring,” Jordan whispers into Tessa’s ear halfway through opening presents (and Tessa has no clue where she’s going to put all the dresses Gwen keeps haphazardly pulling out of bags with her chubby hands). 

Tessa turns her head from where she was watching Scott help Gwen open yet another box ( _Oh my God, they’re skates Tessa! So tiny!_ ) to look at her sister. “What?”

“When are you two going to accidentally fuck again and then not so accidentally stay in love for the rest of your lives?” Jordan deadpans and Tessa places her hand over her sister’s mouth. 

“Jo, you can’t say that!”

Jordan shrugs and pushes Tessa’s hand away. “It’s true, baby sis. You gotta do something about this crush.”

 _It’s way past a crush_ , Tessa thinks, especially when Scott pulls Gwen in for a cuddle and kisses her whole face. But she’s pretty sure Jordan already knows that. She’s pretty sure everyone knows it but Scott.

~

The first time Gwen walks is something else. Tessa is just strolling through the door, home from Jordan’s house where she was helping her sister with her own new baby. Jordan’s still pregnant, and Tessa squealed in excitement when she first found out. She and her sister chatted for hours about how close Gwen and her baby are going to be. They both hope and pray it’s going to be a girl. 

Scott’s crouching next to the couch and holding his phone out along with his hand. “Good girl, come on.”

Tessa looks at him with a confused expression before turning the corner and seeing Gwen standing up, holding tightly onto the fabric of the couch. Tess clamps her hand over her mouth in shock, staring wide eyed at her daughter who looks like she’s about to take off. “Has she yet?”

Scott shakes his head, the smile still ever present on his face. “No, but she’s about to. I can feel it.”

“You can feel it?”

“Shh,” Scott waves his hand at her. “Don’t question the bond between a father and his daughter.”

Tessa’s mouth still goes dry whenever Scott calls Gwen his daughter, because what? Gwen is her daughter but oh yeah, Scott his her father because they fucked one time in South Korea and here they are over a year later, with a baby that is theirs and a heart full of love for each other. (Well, maybe not each other, but Tessa knows looking at Scott that her heart beats to a distinct rhythm of his name. Thank God _Gwen_ and _Scott_ are both one perfect syllable.)

Gwen picks up her foot and steps it out, slowly but surely making her way closer to Scott. Tessa crouches beside him and sees that he’s filming it all on his phone. _What a dad_ , she thinks. _I’m so in love with you and so happy that you are the father of my child_ is also something she thinks, but what’s new? 

“Good girl, Gweney. Come to daddy, that’s it,” Scott’s laughing through his words, curling his fingers to gesture her closer. 

Gwen follows the instructions (always a sucker for doing what she’s told, that one) and continues to step further, finally letting go and stumbling messily towards her mom and dad. Tessa catches her at the last moment before she can fall face first onto the floor. She laughs and Gwen laughs and Scott laughs and she can’t believe Gwen’s taken her first steps. 

She looks up at Scott and in a rush of happiness, leans up and kisses him. It ends as fast as it started, with her pulling away like his lips have burned her own. They don’t talk about it after. But then again, they don’t talk about a lot of stuff (and so much for communication).

~

The first time Tessa knows she’s fucked up, and that there’s no way she can ever love someone else as much as she loves Scott Moir, is on a Saturday morning. 

She stayed out late the night before, helping Jordan wrap up some last minute things before the baby is supposed to arrive in a few weeks. So when she wakes up past ten in the morning, Tessa’s not surprised. Gwen hasn’t woken her up with her cries either, which is quite the wonderful surprise. As much as Tessa loves her little girl, does she ever take on Scott when it comes to her interest in waking up early. 

When Tessa walks towards her kitchen, she hears Scott softly speaking. She thinks he’s on the phone for a moment before she can actually pick up the words of the conversation. 

“I personally like the purple dog better,” he says in an inquisitive tone, much like how he used to talk about choreography or training schedules or show stops. “What do you think, monkey?”

Monkey, the nickname Scott’s recently given Gwen because of her love of finding a way to climb over _absolutely everything_. It’s a nightmare, honestly. Tessa hears some babbling and a few hums of appreciation from Scott. _He’s talking to her_.

“That’s what I thought too,” and he’s responding as if Gwen’s just told him the meaning of life and why the sky is blue and why the grass is green. “Maybe we could make momma some toast and eggs, huh? She’d probably like that.”

Her heart grows two sizes, like the Grinch in the movie they watched a few weeks ago (way past Christmas, but oh well). She peaks her head out from the wall and sees Scott pulling out pans and the toaster. Gwen is sat in her high chair, the laptop a sensible distance from her on the table where it’s replaying old episodes of Paw Patrol that Tessa’s pretty sure she’s watched ten times (at least).

“What do you think of breakfast in bed, little lady?” Scott asks and Gwen giggles in reply. “Yeah, that’s what I thought too.”

And if Tessa scurries back to her bedroom (yes, her bedroom, because she’s not sharing a bed with Scott because they’re not together and there’s no need to) and pretends to be asleep when Scott walks into the room, holding a tray and Gwen in his arms, well, no one needs to know. 

“Special delivery!” Scott shouts and Tessa fakes rousing from her sleep, rolling over and groaning like she’s just woken up. 

“Huh? What’s going on?” and wow, someone give her an Oscar. 

Scott chuckles and plops Gwen down on the bed, who quickly crawls up to snuggle into Tessa’s open arms. “I thought we’d bring you some breakfast.”

Tessa sits up and places Gwen on her lap and the tray full of food (coffee, toast, and poached eggs) goes on her knees. “Thank you, you two,” she says softly, kissing Gwen on the top of her head before smiling up at Scott.

He smiles and places a hand on her upper thigh (which _totally_ does nothing to Tessa) and kisses her check softly. “Always,” he says. 

She wishes he were telling the truth. 

~

The first time that Tessa and Scott fight, which coincidentally falls into the category of the first time he breaks her heart and _also_ the day of Gwen’s first birthday, is on July 1st. They used to tense up thinking about Gwen’s birthday, imagining it would be at least two months later. But now they laugh, thinking of how fitting it is that their daughter’s birthday falls on Canada Day. The daughter of two highly decorated Canadian athletes, who are apparently considered the country’s sweethearts. 

It all comes together perfectly, a combination of a Canada Day party along with Gwen’s birthday. There’s small maple leaf flags decorated around their backyard and a huge cake (along with a smaller one because Tessa _needs_ pictures of her daughter shoving cake in her face). It’s all set up, Tessa’s inner perfectionist peeking out and aligning everything in neat piles and areas. 

“Ta da!” Scott comes out to the backyard where Tessa is putting some finishing touches on the decorations. He’s holding Gwen’s hand as she toddles beside him, donning a ridiculous bucket hat with _CANADA_ printed in large letters across the front. Her dress is white and red with little tufts of frill sticking out from it. Even her white sandals have red maple leafs on them. 

Tessa laughs and shakes her head. “That’s the last time I’m allowing you to dress our daughter.”

“What do you mean?” he feigns shock, like Gwen doesn’t look absolutely ridiculous. “I think she looks beautiful.”

“You thought wrong,” Tessa crosses her arms and watches to two make their way across the grass. Scott let’s go of Gwen’s hand and she runs, as fast as her little feet can carry her, to wrap her arms around Tessa’s legs. She picks her up and settles her on her hip. “What has daddy put you in, you poor thing?”

Scott pouts and stands beside them, places a soft kiss on Tessa’s temple. He does that a lot more now, ever since Gwen was born it seems. Whenever she’s around their daughter, or even just around in general really, Scott always seems to have to be touching her, kissing her, standing so close she can feel him breathing down her neck. Not that she minds though. 

People arrive quickly and not so quietly. Between Tessa and Scott, they have probably the largest families of anyone she knows. They file in, usually in groups, and all drop off presents and kisses to Gwen’s head. She loves the attention, really. Stares up at everyone with these big green eyes and the largest smile Tessa thinks she’s ever seen on the little girl. 

It goes well, everything slotting into the perfectly planned mental schedule Tessa’s been going over for the past month. Until it doesn’t. 

She has no idea where Gwen or Scott are, but there’s family everywhere and she trusts all these people with everything in her. (She tries not to think about how she has to trust these people to not only let go of Gwen but also Scott.)

“Who is that?” Jordan comes up behind her and slyly points her finger just to the left. She’s so pregnant Tessa thinks she’s going to pop at any moment.

Tessa turns her head and sees Scott talking to a woman she has never seen before. “I don’t know,” she says honestly, because she doesn’t, has never met the blonde in her life. 

“She’s standing close to your man.”

Tessa scoffs and crosses her arms. “He’s not my man,” but the way she keeps staring at the two and how she fixes her stature to stand a little taller practically screams possessiveness.

“Maybe you should go say hi,” Jordan suggests with a little shove to her back. 

“No,” Tessa shakes her head but continues to stare at them. She’d say it’s not polite but it’s her house and her rules and her-her, well. The father of _her child_. Scott’s also her best friend and skating partner and other half, so. 

The blonde seems obnoxious, laughing at everything Scott says and lightly touching his arm unnecessarily. When she flips her hair behind her shoulder and bats her eyelashes wildly, Tessa notices Scott’s cheeks flush (and it’s not from the sun). And oh gosh- “Oh gosh, she’s flirting with him,” Jordan gasps her thoughts beside her. 

“Maybe I should go say hi,” Tessa’s walking towards the two before she can even finish her sentence. 

She grabs Gwen on the way over, picking her out of Alma’s arms and carrying her over to where Scott is still talking to this woman who Tessa’s quickly starting to dislike. 

“Hi,” Tessa greets the two of them with a smile and stands so close to Scott their shoulders touch. “How are you?”

The woman’s smile shrinks and Tessa feels somewhat victorious. “I’m good, how are you?”

“Great!” Tessa chirps and hoists Gwen higher up on her hip. “Sorry, I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Tessa, and this is Gwen,” she holds her daughter’s hand up and waves for her. “And you are?”

“Stacy,” the woman sticks her hand out and Tessa shakes it gingerly. “I’ve heard lots about you, Gwen,” Stacy smiles and lightly tickles Gwen’s stomach. 

Tessa clears her throat and takes a small step backwards. “Oh, have you?”

“Tessa,” Scott’s voice would sound pleasant to anyone else, but Tessa knows every note change in his tone. He’s mad. “Can you and Gwen come help me inside, please? There’s something I need your opinion on.”

She smiles at Scott and wills him with her eyes to not make a scene. “Yes, of course.” She turns to Stacy. “Nice meeting you.”

“Likewise,” Stacy says and nods her head.

Scott grabs onto Tessa’s elbow and tugs her into the house, past the sliding screen door and into Gwen’s bedroom. He paces in front of her and it’s so reminiscent of the first time she told him she was pregnant that it scares her. 

“What’s wrong?”

“What’s wrong?” Scott repeats her question. “Are you serious, Tessa?”

She nods her head. “Yeah, clearly you’re upset.”

“Yeah, I am,” he seethes and she holds onto Gwen tightly. The girl just places her head onto Tessa’s shoulder, clearly exhausted from the activity and the heat. “What the fuck was that?”

“Scott,” Tessa covers Gwen’s ear and shields her from his words. “What is your problem?”

He scoffs. “Cut that shit out, Tessa, she doesn’t understand what we’re saying.”

“Are you underestimating our daughter?”

Scott groans and pulls at his hair. “Stop doing that! Stop acting like you’re the superior parent!”

“What?” Tessa blinks at him. “Who ever said that I think that?”

“It’s not how you think, it’s how you act, Tessa. You’re constantly correcting me and acting like I’m the one making all of the mistakes, not you,” the way he points his finger at her churns her stomach in the worst way. Gwen feels like a weight in her arms. 

“Stop it, Scott. You know that’s not true.” He doesn’t say a word, just stares down at his shoes and the white carpet. “I know that’s not why you’re upset, yeah? So tell me. You know we’re in this together, please tell me what’s wrong.”

His eyes flick up and the intensity in them could start an entire forest fire. “We’re not together though Tessa. That’s the thing, yeah? You’re out here getting grumpy because I’m talking to a girl that I like-”

“Wait,” Tessa shakes her head and holds her hand out to grip Gwen’s crib. “You like her?”

“Yeah, I do, Tess. Is that going to be a problem for you?” his voice drips with sarcasm. “Because, I don’t know, just a reminder that we’re only both living in this house together because of Gwen.”

“You brought a girl that you like, you brought a _date_ , to our daughter’s first birthday party?” she’s seething.

Scott shrugs. “And what’s so wrong with that?”

Tessa laughs humourlessly and actually has to set Gwen down into her crib before she accidentally drops her. “You’re fucked if you don’t see what’s wrong with that.”

“You’re like a ball and chain, Tessa, God!” he’s shouting now and Tessa’s eyes flick over to Gwen. Precious Gwen, who’s staring up at her parents who can’t seem to ever get their shit together. 

“That’s how you feel, huh?” she thinks she’s going to cry. “Do you think that way about Gwen, too? Or is it just me? Your best friend for twenty years and the mother of your child?”

“Gwen’s my daughter,” he says flatly. 

She’s definitely crying now. “And I’m what? Some trash you found on the side of the road? Get a grip, Scott!”

“You know that’s not true!”

Gwen starts crying along with Tessa, letting out these small whimpers before she’s full out screaming. Tessa scoops down and holds her so close, shielding her from the one man she never thought she would have to. 

“Do I, Scott?” her voice is quiet. “Do I know that’s not true?”

When she turns her back to walk out of the door, Scott runs after her and steps in front of her path. His eyes are frantic and his hands are held up. “Where are you going?” And oh. _He thinks she’s running._

She shakes her head. “I’m going outside to our family. Come back out when you figure out what’s important enough to put some effort into.”

Tessa stops in the bathroom before making her way into the backyard. She looks like a mess, with black streaks of mascara running down her face and a red faced Gwen sat on her hip. She places her baby on the counter and wipes under her eyes, straightens out her ponytail while she’s at it. Tessa stares at herself and sees nothing. She feels like some hollow empty person, present in this other body that she doesn’t even recognize. 

She knew this would tear them apart. Gwen is the greatest thing to ever happen to Tessa, and she wouldn’t trade her for the entire world. But Scott’s her soulmate. And she knew they’d never make it past this. It’s too messy and too much and. Tessa believes in fate, but she’s not sure about this part. 

They go back outside, she and Gwen. Tessa watches her daughter shove cake in her face and plasters on a fake smile that she’s pretty sure her mother can see right through. Scott stands off to the side, watching Gwen open present after present with this expression that screams _pain_. Tessa’s not sure why. She’s the one that feels like her heart’s been ripped out of her chest and left bleeding on the floor of their daughter’s bedroom. 


	3. year two. part one.

Scott knew the second Danny brought a woman to his daughter’s first birthday party, it was a bad idea. He knew when the woman smiled at him with pretty eyes and a luring smile, it was a bad idea. He knew letting his brother try to set him up while Gwen was being passed around from person to person and Tessa smiled the whole way, it was a bad idea. Scott knew the moment Tessa gripped onto his arm so tight while he talked to Stacy, it was a bad idea. 

But it still happened. Bad ideas always happen, because how are you supposed to know they’re bad until they are put into the universe. 

Tessa’s been quiet ever since the fight in Gwen’s bedroom, with the little girl sat crying in her crib, staring up at her parents and screaming at them. Like daughter, like mother and father. She barely looks at him anymore, only interacts with Scott when she absolutely needs to. Sometimes their hands brush against each other whenever they pass Gwen back and forth. 

It’s been the longest two weeks of Scott’s life. 

He knows that he should probably explain himself, but he said things too. Things that delve too deep and cut too hard in his soul. Scott let thoughts and feelings fumble out of his mouth that he never even had time to process himself. Because Tessa is the most amazing mother in the world, and Scott sometimes feels incompetent, but he never thought he’d bring it up. But among the heat of July and the adrenaline of Tessa wanting to _claim_ Scott, he let it all out. And he regrets ever opening his stupid mouth. 

But he can’t take it back and he isn’t anywhere close to knowing what to say to Tessa to make it all feel better. Scott feels like he’s nineteen again, waiting for Tessa to heal and having no idea what to say to her. Watching skating partner after skating partner attempt to take her place, and him staying silent through it all. He’d never replace Tessa, though. Not as a skating partner, not as the mother of his child, not as the love of his life. 

So he dances around her now like he’s danced around her his entire life. He’s used to being able to grab onto her though. Is used to grounding himself with the feel of her skin against his, the soft puffs of her breaths on his cheek. This dance is different, now. It’s heartbreaking and difficult and Scott wants it to end the second it begins. It reminds him a lot of _Stay_ , where they spilled too many real emotions in one four-minute skate. This dance feels too real, too present. 

Scott wants it to end but he doesn’t know how. 

~

“Good morning,” he mumbles to Tessa when she walks into the kitchen, Gwen sitting on her hip and chewing on her fist. 

Tessa smiles but it’s fake. She knows he can tell what her real smile is, and she knows how much it kills him whenever she flashes him something akin to the one she uses on strangers and press teams. “Morning.”

Scott clears his throat and pushes a plate towards her on the island. “I made breakfast.” There’s two pieces of whole grain toast with avocado spread across the bread, a poached egg stacked on each. 

She gives him a small smile because she still reacts to things he does. As much as Tessa likes to think she can stay mad, she can’t. They both get upset, though, heart wrenchingly sad and distraught with each other. He knows that usually her anger fizzles to a grumpy nature in the matter of hours. But Scott can still tell how much this is all impacting her. He still gets moments though, of tight lipped smiles and repressed giggles. Usually it’s only when Gwen’s around. 

“Thanks,” Tessa says before sitting Gwen down in her high chair. 

The girl giggles and claps her hands, a big grin spreading across her face, making her cheeks chubbier than they usually are. 

“How was your sleep, monkey?” Scott asks Gwen, placing a kiss on the top of her head. Gwen squeals and waves her hands around, making him chuckle. “That good, huh?” 

He sits down across from Tessa, watching her feed Gwen yogurt and berries. His heart still grows whenever he watches his two favourite girls. Because no matter how much shit is going on, he still loves them both more than anything or anyone in the entire world. 

“I have an appointment to go to today,” Tessa speaks up and looks at him only briefly before going back to wiping the sides of Gwen’s mouth. “Is it okay if you watch her for the morning?”

“Of course,” Scott automatically responds. He wants to reach out and touch her, but that hasn’t been allowed for two weeks. But then again, was it ever allowed? “Is everything okay?”

She nods her head. “Yeah. It’s more of a meeting than an appointment. Kelly wants me to come in and talk about a possible contract for, uhm,” she pauses. “Never mind, it’s stupid.”

Scott scoffs. “It’s probably not, Tess. Just tell me.”

The way she glances at him, her eyes hollow and cheeks even more so, tells him that maybe he shouldn’t be asking for more information. She sighs anyways. “It’s for modelling. My body is finally back in shape after Gwen, and I want to get back into it.”

One part of Scott is happy for Tessa, knows how much she’s always liked posing for a camera in different outfits. Some absolutely ridiculous, some so beautiful they dry his mouth out. Another part of him wants to see her body, wants to familiarize himself once again with the curve of her hips and the feel of her stomach. He pushes that part far down. 

“That’s great, Tess,” he says with a smile that he hopes she can feel. “Of course I’ll be here with Gwen.”

Tessa nods and turns back to Gwen, not acknowledging Scott’s presence until she leaves out the door with a quiet _goodbye_. He just sighs and holds onto Gwen so tight she actually starts to squirm. Fuck, this needs to end. 

~

They aren’t passive aggressive with each other, is the thing. Scott thinks it’d all be so much better if they were, if he could yell or snap or give dirty looks. But they love each other too much and the heartbreak is too deep for them to do anything but wallow in sadness. So they just walk around the house in mostly silence. The only sound is usually the TV playing another episode of Bubble Guppies, or Tessa’s voice quietly reading to Gwen, or the little babbles and squeals the girl lets out at something exciting happening. 

Scott misses her voice. One night, when he’s desperate and hurting, he peaks his head through the open door of Gwen’s bedroom. Tessa’s sat on the rocking chair with Gwen settled in her lap, sucking on a soother and pulling at her own ear the way she does whenever she’s exhausted. There’s a book held in Tess’ hands and her voice is so soft and smooth while reading out the words from the pages. She raises her eyebrows when something intense happens, and when Gwen and Tessa’s eyes shimmer the same way after the princess saves the prince ( _it’s the best plot twist, Scott, she has to have it_ ) it makes Scott’s heart skip a beat. They are both so similar, it sometimes hurts. And maybe adds a little fuel to the fire. 

“Mommy loves you,” Tessa whispers once the book is closed and placed on the side table. Gwen’s eyes are sleepily blinking up at her. “I love you, baby.”

She’s still rocking back and forth, Gwen now cradled in her arms with Tessa’s hand lightly patting her bum. Gwen reaches up and curls her fingers around a strand of Tess’ hair. Usually she would laugh and tug it out of her hands, telling Gwen to not pull. But now she just stares down at the little girl with a sad smile. Scott can’t help but think the reason for her face is because of him. 

“Daddy loves you, too,” Tessa says and her voice sounds wet with tears. It doesn’t help Scott’s already fragile state. “Don’t worry, my love. Everything will be okay. I promise.”

She stands up and places Gwen in her crib, staring down and brushing her fingers over the feather-like wisps of hair on the top of their daughter’s head. He processes Tessa’s words, and he’s not sure if they were for Gwen or herself or even Scott. But they shed some light at the end of the tunnel. 

~

In reality, they probably should have payed attention more.

Scott likes to think he is observant, not only of the occurrences around him, but the feelings and emotions settling on people’s faces and in their soul. So when it happens, he’s shocked he didn’t see it coming. 

“Gwen!” Scott calls to the little girl who is toddling around in the grass of the backyard. “Come here, monkey!”

She looks up at him, the tip of her bucket hat shielding maybe too much of her face. He has to chuckle when her chubby little legs try to trudge through the long grass. Scott really should get out there with the lawn mower. Maybe tomorrow. 

“Hey,” a voice says from behind him and he turns to see Tessa standing in the sliding doorway.

Scott smiles. “Hi. Where were you?”

She shrugs. “Out.”

“Where is out?” his voice is light but her face is dark. 

“Why do you need to know?”

Scott sighs and runs a hand through his hair. He’s tried not to fight with her, but sometimes he pushes too much and she shoves right back. “I’m just curious, Tess. That’s all.”

“Well at least I’m not being a ball and chain anymore.” Her tone is sharp and his blood runs cold. It’s the first time either of them have brought up _that day_ , where they fought and yelled and very possibly ruined everything. Funny how they could get through a surprise pregnancy with little to no stumbling, but one miscommunication leads to their downfall. Scott thinks it’s rich. 

He presses his lips together and thinks through his words. “You know I never meant that, Tess.”

She rolls her eyes and closes the door behind her, stepping in front of him. “Are we going to keep doing this, Scott? I can’t keep dancing around you like this. You need to tell me what you want.”

“I want Gwen,” he says, quick and fast because he’s never wanted anything more than he’s wanted the little girl. Not a gold medal or recognition or another title added to the list. 

Tessa bites her lip and looks up at him. Her eyes are so sad, have turned this dull forest green that pierces right through him as much as her usual emerald ones do. Except now it’s a pain rather than a jolt of electricity. “And what about me?”

He inhales sharply, and if he could, Scott would kiss her right now. Lately, he’s been wondering why he can’t. “Tess--”

Scott is cut off by a screaming wail coming from behind him and his body turns so fast he stumbles a bit. Gwen is laying face first on the cement, screaming bloody murder and flailing her arms abut. He acts fast, running to her and picking her up. 

“Scott,” Tessa breathes quickly beside him and runs her hands all over Gwen’s body. “Is she okay?”

She’s bleeding from a gash on her forehead and there’s _so much blood_. He thinks he’s going to throw up. “Fuck,” he mumbles, but it’s barely heard from the screams Gwen is still forcing out of her chest. 

“Oh my god,” Tessa’s voice is strained as she tries to stop the bleeding with her goddamn hands. 

“That’s not going to work, Tess,” Scott huffs and holds Gwen to his chest. 

“I’m trying!” Tessa’s crying now, and Scott thinks maybe they’re talking about more than just their daughter’s gushing wound. “Please, Scott.”

In a moment so quick it’s there and gone like a flash of lightening, Scott locks eyes with Tessa. “I’ve got her.” And it seems to be enough because Tessa sniffles and steps back, letting him into the house. 

Gwen’s still screaming and each time she inhales, shaky and noisily, Scott prays they will stop. But she starts up again each time, a different range of vocals escaping her chest and he never thought such a small body could make such gut-wrenching screams. He sets her down on the kitchen counter and there’s blood everywhere, he can barely see the lines of her face. 

Before he can look, Tessa hands him a cloth and he presses down on the wound. Tess reaches over with a wet paper towel and begins to wipe the blood from Gwen’s face, letting out little _shhh_ sounds to try and calm the girl. It works, her noises go from screams to whimpers which makes her a lot easier to work with. 

“It’s okay, my baby,” Tessa continues to soothe Gwen, tickling her fingers up and down her back. “I’m so sorry, love. I’m so sorry.” Scott has no clue why she’s apologizing, but he feels the same way. 

_It’s my fault, it’s my fault, it’s my fault._

Gwen pouts out her little lip and whenever she does this, Scott can’t help but think she looks exactly like Tessa. “It’s okay, monkey,” Scott whispers and brushes his thumb along her cheek. He pulls the cloth away and the gash is big, still spilling out blood. “We should probably go to the hospital.”

There’s a sharp inhale of breath beside him and he turns to see Tess wearing her teeth against her top lip. “The hospital?” Scott nods and she closes her eyes for a moment before saying, “Okay.”

Scott picks Gwen up carefully while continuing to hold the cloth against her forehead. He places her in the car seat that’s settled in the back of Tessa’s car and watches as she climbs in the driver’s seat, pulling away from their house with her knuckles white. He wants to reach forward and place a hand over hers, if only to make sure she doesn’t break the dry skin he knows she gets sometimes. 

The hospital reminds Scott of bad times, of Gwen being so small she couldn’t even breathe on her own. Of Tessa crying against Scott’s chest and his mom telling him that everything is going to be okay even though he thought it’d end in disaster. Gwen looks around like she already knows every crevice of the hospital like the back of her hand. 

She needs five stitches and she cries the whole time while getting them. Tessa holds her in her lap and hushes her, giving soft kisses to the back of her head and brushing the hair from her face. Scott holds onto Tessa’s thigh the whole process, and each time Gwen’s face scrunches up in pain he feels his heart contract in his chest. 

It’s his job to protect Gwen, to make sure that she stays safe and shit like this doesn’t happen to her. When she was sick, Scott knew it wasn’t his fault. There was nothing either of them could have done differently. But now, looking at his little girl crying in pain because she fell, because he wasn’t watching her. It’s hurting himself. There’s an indescribable feeling deep inside of him, something so similar to the time he dropped Tessa during practice and she cried from the pain in her arm. 

They can’t keep doing this. Gwen got hurt because of them fighting, and if they continue, she’s going to keep getting hurt. More than just physically. Scott will never forgive himself if he inflicts pain on Gwen again. If he does it to Tessa again. 

The doctor walks out for a moment and Scott turns to Tessa. “We can’t keep fighting.”

She nods, sulking her head down. “I know.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking. None of the stuff I said was real.”

Her eyes are so wide and are still shining from the tears she shed earlier. “I’m sorry. I--” a pause. “I shouldn’t have been so… _possessive_. You have every right to date who you want to date.”

Scott blinks. “What do you mean?”

“Stacy,” Tessa says, plain and simple. 

He has to laugh. “I didn’t bring her to the party, Tess. Danny said he wanted to introduce me to someone because--” _because I couldn’t get my mind off of you and how much I love you_. “Well, let’s just say I had no clue who Stacy was. Still don’t know.” She stares at him and continues to stroke her fingers up and down Gwen’s chubby leg. He can’t help but shiver when her nails scrape against his thigh. Scott reaches up and cups her cheek. “I’m here for you, Tess. I’m here for Gwen. I want you.” And finishing the sentence he started earlier that day feels like lifting a weight off of his shoulders. 

Tessa smiles her genuine grin at him for the first time in three weeks and everything seems to click back into place. “I want you too.”

They still have a lot to work out, like the fact that Scott still wants to kiss her as much as he did years ago. And how Tessa leans forward slowly, moving her lips to his cheek at the last moment. But this is a moment, and they’re still figuring it out. Slowly, but surely. 

~

Scott’s been picking up teams at the Ilderton Skating Club. Well, not really teams, more like just one. He can’t help it when one day he heads to the rink and watches a young girl and boy, no older than ten years old he thinks, skating beside each other and stumbling just slightly. 

He goes up to Danny who is watching his own son twirl around on the ice. “Who are they?” Scott asks, gesturing to the pair of skaters who have now changed position so the girl is skating backwards and the boy is holding tightly onto her hands. 

“Maggie and Lucas,” Danny says, turning his head to see them try out a spin and fail. He then looks to Scott. “What are you thinking, Scotty?”

“Just give me a second,” he says and before thinking, steps onto the ice. He’s not wearing skates. “Hey,” Scott greets the two other skaters. 

The girl looks up at him and actually gasps. “Uh, hi Mister Scott,” she says in a quiet voice. 

The boy, Lucas, laughs. “Hello. Maggie is in love with you.”

“Lucas!” Maggie screeches and hits the boy. “Am not.”

“Am too,” Lucas throws back. 

Scott feels like he should step in. “It seems like you are struggling with your spins.”

Both of the skaters look up at him.

“No.”

“Yeah.” 

They speak at the same time, Maggie with her hands on her hips and chest puffed out, Lucas with his head held in shame. Scott laughs. “You have to watch the way your calves turn and how you bend your knees. Don’t think about it with your ankles.”

He helps them with their footing, turning their legs with his hands and guiding them step by step through the process of deepening their edges. Scott learns that Lucas is ten and Maggie is nine ( _I’m turning ten in a month, though!_ ) and he instantly takes a liking to them. They’re fun and cute and so receptive to Scott’s feedback it’s actually kind of wild. 

So Scott keeps coming back, every Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning before Tessa and Gwen have the chance to wake up. Maggie and Lucas nail their spins and he even gets them started on some lower level lifts. It’s thrilling and takes him back to one of the biggest joys of his life; skating. If only Tessa could be beside him, holding his hand and giving her own instructions to the young skaters. 

There’s one morning when Scott wakes up to head to the rink when he sees Tessa sitting on the couch with the TV playing, Gwen very much awake beside her. She looks exhausted, her hair sticking up from her messy bun and a robe tied tightly around her. 

“What’s going on here?” Scott asks softly, careful not to break the two from their trance. Moana has always held a soft spot for them. 

Gwen turns her head at the sound and smiles, makes these tiny noises of excitement while climbing off the couch and running (more like stumbling) over to Scott. He chuckles and picks her up, kissing her face all over. Tessa yawns on the couch and stands up slowly, stretching her hands over her head. Scott catches the way her robe slips up her bare thighs and swallows hard. “Missy didn’t want to sleep anymore.”

“Go back to bed, T,” Scott says. “I’ll take care of this little insomniac.”

Tessa huffs out a laugh. “You have to go coach, though.”

“I’ll bring her with me.”

She shoots him a look, eyebrows raised in a calculating glance. “How are you going to manage that.”

“I’ll figure it out.”

He finds out quickly that trying to skate around a rink with a fourteen month old is quite the struggle. Gwen screams the first time he steps on the ice and fat tears slide down her face. Scott has to take a picture (he’s a good dad, he promises) and send it to Tessa. 

_She’s not our daughter, we have to take her back_ is what the caption reads. 

Tessa sends back a photo of Gwen smiling in a Maple Leafs onesie, holding onto a stuffed moose. He knows the picture was taken weeks ago. _Are you sure about that?_

_I’ll make her love the ice. Don’t worry._

Gwen gets used to it. She ends up giggling by the end of the session when Scott spins around quickly (and safely). The tiny hairs on her head flit around her face and the laugh she emits makes him break down too. 

Maggie and Lucas fall in love with her almost as fast as Scott did. The red headed little girl holds onto Gwen’s tiny hand, and Lucas shyly waves at her whenever he can. Maggie asks if Gwen can come to every session, and Scott wants to say yes until he tries to correct how Lucas’ leg is moving and finds his arms full of baby. 

~

“Mommy,” Tessa is repeating the word over and over again to Gwen. “Come on baby, just say _Mommy_.”

Scott scoffs from the other side of the room where he’s watching TV, a Blue Jays game flashing across the screen. “Are you trying to sabotage our child into saying mommy before daddy?”

She blushes and hangs her head. “Maybe.”

Gwen just chews on her blueberries and continues to play with the trains on her high chair table. No words come from her mouth. Tessa sighs and pushes away from the table. 

“What are you huffing about?” Scott asks, tearing his eyes away from the TV to see where she’s started washing dishes from their late lunch. 

She looks concerned. “Shouldn’t she be speaking by now? I read online--”

“Tess,” he cuts her off and stands up, walking over to the kitchen and leaning against the counter. “Don’t trust everything you read online, yeah? Shouldn’t we be two of the best people to know that?”

A laugh escapes her mouth and he’s glad she’s cheered up a bit. “Yeah, I guess.”

“Besides, every baby is different. She’ll speak. And then she’ll never shut up.”

Tessa groans. “Then she’ll be just like her daddy, huh?” She turns to look at Gwen. “Won’t you? Chatting every second of every day, just like daddy.”

Gwen bangs her hand on the table and smiles. “Dada!”

Scott inhales and Tessa gasps. “Did she just?”

“Oh my God.”

“Say it again,” Scott prods, walking towards Gwen. “Say daddy.”

“Dada!” she shouts again, her hands flying in the air, throwing one of the many trains off the table. 

Scott’s heart beats overtime and he can’t help but grin at Tessa. He thinks maybe she’ll be sad, but the way her face is glowing tells him she’s anything but upset. There’s a screenshot of this scene saved in the back of his mind, under a file titled _Greatest Moments of My Life_.

~

The thing is that Scott’s still in love with Tessa. The other thing is that they both don’t see anyone. Ever. They don’t even talk about other people they are interested in. He’s not sure whether that’s a good or bad thing. 

~

He gets home from a training session at the rink on a Monday and sees Tessa and Gwen sitting on the floor in the family room, playing with different puzzles spread around the ground. Scott’s not sure how they are supposed to make multiple at one time, seeing as the pieces are just going to mix together. They’re setting themselves up for failure, really. But when Gwen smiles up at him standing in the doorway, he doesn’t care. 

“Dada!” she shouts and stands up, slowly making her way to hug his legs. 

He still feels like his whole body has been shocked with an electrical current each time she recognizes him, every time she opens her little mouth and calls him _dada_. Scott thinks his real name doesn’t even matter anymore. 

“Hi Gwenie!” he shouts and practically throws her in the air, which receives a squeal from Gwen and a glare from Tessa. Scott smiles sheepishly at her until he sees a plate of waffles with cheese melted on top. “What the fuck is that?”

“Scott,” Tessa hisses. “You can’t swear now, she just repeats everything.”

“Sorry,” he coughs, clearing his throat. “What the _heck_ is that?”

She shrugs. “I heard from Jordan that apparently your kid likes to eat the weird things that you craved when you were pregnant. So I tried it and, turns out, Guinevere really likes some waffles and cheese.”

“Cheese!” Gwen shouts, because apparently she doesn’t know how to actually just _say_ anything. 

Scott laughs and is transported back in time, to almost two years ago when Tessa’s belly had just started growing and the reality of his future was just sinking in. 

~

It’s two in the morning and Scott wakes up to the sounds of shuffling in the kitchen. He sits up slowly and groans when he looks at the clock. The air is cool when he yanks the sheets off of his body and a shiver runs up his spine. There’s pants on the ground that he slips on before making his way down the stairs to see Tessa sitting on the floor of the kitchen, in front of the open fridge. 

He has to laugh. “What are you doing?”

Tessa turns her head and looks up at him. “I’m hungry,” she mumbles and he can see she’s got a plate of Eggo waffles in front of her. He slides down the cabinets until he’s sat beside her. “You know what would make these waffles even better?”

“What?”

Her eyes are shining when she looks at him. “Cheese.”

Scott blinks. “I’m sorry, what?”

“Just trust me,” she says before reaching into the fridge and pulling out shredded mozzarella, sprinkling it over top of the three waffles on her plate. Tess stands up quickly, placing the plate in the microwave for a minute before sitting back down on the floor beside Scott. She takes a bite and moans out loud. “This is the greatest idea I’ve ever had.”

He chuckles, sliding his arm around her shoulders so she can lean her head on his own. “Better than the idea to come back to competition?”

Tessa scoffs. “Fuck the comeback. Cheese waffles are better than all of our gold medals.”

He doesn’t believe her, so he picks up another one of the waffles from the plate and bites a chunk out of it. The second the food hits his tongue he wants to spit it up. “Oh my fuck, Tessa, this is awful.” Scott gags and actually spits the waffle into a napkin, throwing it into the garbage immediately. 

“Well now you’ve just wasted food. And not _just food_ , the greatest food in the world. You’re stupid.”

But the way she looks at him, a teasing grin on her face, tells him she thinks he’s anything but stupid. 

~

It kind of comes out of nowhere. 

“I’m going on a date tonight.”

He’s known that there’s always been the possibility of Tessa finding someone else. It has sat there in the back of his mind, consistently coming up whenever she interacts with another man. Whether it be at the grocery store or the movie theatre or even in a restaurant. Scott feels this sort of protection over Tessa, like he has any right to feel possessive over her. 

But he also represses it. Shoves it _down down down_ until he forgets that maybe they’ll both live alone for the rest of their lives. Or, as alone as they can be with each other and the most beautiful little girl in the entire world. 

So when she tells him about her date, he chokes on his water. 

“Oh gosh, Scott. Are you okay?” Tessa asks, patting his back hard to help him cough up the liquid. 

He nods his head. “Yeah, fine. I’m fine.” But he’s not fine, not really. “Just went down the wrong pipe.”

“Okay,” she says, but it sounds more like a question. It’s quiet in the house, Gwen is passed out for her afternoon nap and the TV is in its once-in-a-blue-moon power off stage. “That’s okay, right? I mean, you’re okay with Gwen?”

“Yeah, of course,” Scott speaks. It’s not okay, though. He wants to scream and yell and hold Gwen in front of her face and say _look what we made with our love_. Except she doesn’t love him. Not the way he wants her to. 

And if the admission of her date doesn’t kill him, the way she dresses up for it does. He’s sat on the floor in the family room, playing with Gwen’s dolls when Tessa steps into the room. Scott has to hold back a gasp. 

“Hi,” she smiles. 

“Hey.”

Gwen continues to play with her dolls, not looking up to see Tessa standing there in these heels that elongate her legs in all the right ways, a dress that hugs her hips and shows off the body she’s always worked so hard for. Scott wonders if the man will appreciate it as much as he does. 

“Guinevere, say goodbye to mumma,” Tessa crouches down and kisses the top of her head. 

“Monkey,” Scott pokes Gwen’s side, pulling her attention away from the game of house she has going on. 

Gwen looks up at Tessa and giggles. “Bye bye, mumma.”

“I love you, baby,” Tessa whispers before giving Gwen one last kiss and standing up. 

Scott has to crane his neck up to look at her. “You look beautiful, Tess.”

The pink that creeps up her face sends a shock through his system, crashing over him and wanting to pull her into his bedroom ( _his_ , because they still live in the same fucking house with their own fucking daughter but they have their own fucking rooms) and tear every piece of fabric from her body. 

“Thank you,” she murmurs. “I’ll be back later tonight. Don’t wait up for me.”

Scott doesn’t want to think of why there’s no time stamp on the end of her date. He clamps his mouth shut, watches as she leaves. There’s a bit of blood that he tastes in his mouth from biting his tongue so hard, from holding his mouth back from moving and not saying the words _I love you, don’t go, please stay._

The front door shutting sounds like a gunshot. 

~

His name is Alton which is about the stupidest name Scott’s ever heard. And there was Fedor, so. That’s saying something. 

Tessa doesn’t talk about him much, but Jordan does. They have weekly playdates where Gwen and Jordan’s little girl Kayleigh get together. Scott usually stays away from the occasion because it’s mostly Jordan and Tessa’s time to catch up while having their girls entertain each other. Kayleigh is little, but Gwen is so gentle with her. 

The first time they played together, Scott remembers Gwen staring at Kayleigh like she was an alien. He laughed when she reached out and tapped at her head. 

Tessa glared at him. “Gentle, Guinevere. You have to be nice with baby Kayleigh.”

Gwen just looked at Tessa before reaching out to run her hand softly over Kayleigh’s forehead. Jordan and Tessa cooed and Scott wanted to roll his eyes, but he doesn’t think he could ever do that to his daughter ( _cue: the terrible twos_ ). 

Now that Kayleigh is older now, six months old (putting Gwen at eighteen which absolutely drives Scott wild with how fast she’s growing), Gwen can hand her things and watch as she tries to maneuver them around. Most times her impatience gets to her and she just does it herself. And even though Gwen is a spitting image of Tessa, Scott can’t help but feel pride swell in his chest whenever she does something that is _so him_.

“Alton told me he wants to meet Gwen,” Tessa says quietly one day when Jordan and Kayleigh are over. 

Scott freezes from his spot at the kitchen table where he’s watching different videos of Maggie and Lucas. The two are improving every day and he feels so proud of them, like they’re his own kids that’ll be posing for a family picture right alongside Gwen. 

“No way!” Jordan squeals. “That’s amazing, Tess. Do you think you are going to introduce him to her?”

He waits for her to answer, but when it’s quiet for a moment he glances over his shoulder and sees Tessa already staring at him. “I’m not sure,” she answers. 

~

“I haven’t told him about you,” Tessa tells him that same night while they’re washing dishes together. 

“What are you talking about?” He wipes harder at the bowl in his hands.

“Alton. I haven’t told him about you.”

Scott places the Elsa bowl (the things he does for Gwen) on the counter and turns to look at her. “But you’ve told him about Gwen.”

She bites her bottom lip and nods her head. “Yeah.”

“Huh.”

Tessa rolls her eyes and throws the wash cloth in the sink. “What, Scott? How am I supposed to tell someone about our situation without them freaking out? We’re a little fucked up, if you haven’t noticed. Should I just come out and say _oh yeah, by the way, I fucked my skating partner once and I got pregnant so now we co-parent and live in the same house but aren’t actually together_. Scott, I know you aren’t looking for someone, but I am. And I don’t know how to do it if I tell them everything.”

He understands, which may be the most messed up part. If there was one thing to get someone running for the hills, it would be their situation. No one’s ever reacted positively to it, not even their own families. Scott’s just lucky the rest of Canada hasn’t gotten a hold on it yet. 

“Okay,” he says quietly, wiping the last plate and placing it in the cupboard.

“That’s it? Okay?”

“I don’t know what you want me to say, Tess. Should I tell you I wish you all the best in your adventure of finding love? Or do you want me to explain why I’m not interested.”

“How can you just give up on love?” she asks and her voice is bare and open, so many more questions laced into the one. Scott doesn’t know what to do, how to pick up on the multiple hints she has dripping in her tone. She reminds him of fifteen year old Tessa, so curious and cautious about the world, looking up at him with all of the trust in her bones.

He can’t help it when he reaches out and tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. “I have enough love in my life.”

Scott’s been shocked before. Like the time when he was ten and Tessa came crawling back to him, giving up ballet in order to skate alongside him for the rest of their careers. Or when his brother taught him about sex and how different a girl’s body is from what he though. Or when Tessa told him that she would have to have surgery. There’s Vancouver gold, Sochi silver, and the PyeongChang victory that he can still feel in his blood. And he could never forget the moment in Hamilton when his life changed forever. 

But Scott can say he’s absolutely burned when Tessa leans up and kisses him, hard and needy and with no sign of letting go.

Not that he wants her to.


	4. year two. part two.

_Canton 2013_

Tessa’s been on the edge the entire season. When Marina introduced Carmen to them, along with the sultry lifts and touches that would accompany the very well-known pieces of music, she felt like it’d end in disaster. That maybe all of the feelings she’s had, reappearing every so often when she least expects them, would come flowing out. Her love for Scott is like the ocean tide. 

Since October, the water has been rushing to shore, leading Tessa to have this awareness of her emotions consistently sitting at the forefront of her mind. She’s in love with Scott. Well, she’s always in love with Scott, but right now she is _very much_ in love with him. 

So how could anyone blame her for the way goosebumps pimple on her skin every time she so much as hears the first beats of music, these wallowing violins that stick every strand of hair on her body straight up. Tessa knows the characters, she knows each time Scott runs his hand along her inner thigh and his thumb accidentally brushes against the absolute core of herself, it’s all for the program. But she can’t help but clock the way he’s been even touchier since the beginning of the season. 

There’s Cassandra though. She’s pretty and nice and maybe a bit clingy, but Scott’s also been into girls who need him. Maybe that’s why he’s kept Tessa around for so long. She sits in the stands sometimes during practice, watching them with slanted eyes and Tessa _knows_ she’s being challenged. But there’s no reason to blame Cassandra. Each of their significant others have always been territorial of them, watching the way Tessa and Scott touch each other, not just with their hands. Sometimes Tess thinks the way that they merely look at each other would be enough for some questioning glances from their partners. 

Even though Scott has Cassandra and Tessa weaves in and out of relationships like nobody’s business, she still can’t help but feel drawn to Scott more than she ever has before. So when it’s a Wednesday afternoon, just inching on the time where lunch is still acceptable and dinner is too earlier, she can’t blame herself. 

“Hey, T!” Scott yells from behind her. She turns and sees him jogging along the side of the parking lot. “You want a ride home?”

Tessa nods thankfully. He drove her here because her car has been in the shop the past couple of days after her engine decided to completely flat line on her. “Yeah, thanks.”

The training that day was… intense. Their lips accidentally brushed against each other Tessa has no idea how many times, but each touch enticed a shiver through her entire skeletal system. She just wants to get home and take a cold shower and a nap. 

Scott opens the passenger door for her and she watches him make his way to the driver’s side, sliding in and shoving his bag into the backseat. Tessa does the same with her own duffle. 

They are quiet for the first couple seconds of the drive, just long enough for Scott to put the car in reverse, turn the wheel, shift into drive and pull out of the parking lot. “Training was good today, yeah?” he asks her. 

Tessa doesn’t look at him. “Yeah. It was.” And she’s not lying because even though she feels like she’s teetering on the edge of a very slippery slope, they still skated better than they have in weeks. Each lift seemed to be elevated from its usual execution, their twizzles were hit in perfect synchronization. 

“How are your legs feeling?” Scott brings up the pain so casually, and even more subtly brushes his hand across her knee. 

She inhales sharply and tries to even out her breathing. “They’re doing better. I think that going to physio twice a week instead of just once is helping.”

“Good,” he nods, shooting her a smile before looking back to the road. “When’s your next appointment?”

“Tomorrow.”

They’re a minute away from her house. 

“Do you want me to drive you?”

Thirty seconds. 

“Yes please.”

Ten seconds. 

“What time should I pick you up?”

They’re here. 

“How does nine sound?”

The air is filled with a static neither of them are apparently going to address. 

“Perfect.”

Tessa’s made a lot of questionable decisions in her life, so it surprises her but at the same time seems palpable and explainable when she leans across the center console and kisses him. She thinks he’s going to pull away immediately, lightly push her back into the seat and explain that they’re just friends. But he doesn’t. Instead, Scott cups her face in his hands and opens his mouth, tilting his head to deepen the kiss. 

She becomes desperate with it all. Somehow fumbles with her shaking hands to unbuckle her seat belt and climb into his lap. They’re in the middle of the street. Scott lets her though, actually reaches down and pushes his seat back to allow more room for her to fit against him. She rolls her hips and he lets out a low groan. Every part of her body is throbbing. 

Their breaths come out in huffs, and there’s a second where she holds his face in her hands and his fingers grip onto her hips, and they just breathe into each other’s mouths. She joins their lips again, melding their mouths together as one. It’s like a forest fire, starting as only a spark and spreading hot and fast everywhere around them. Creating disaster. 

Scott jerks his head away and Tessa needs to get _off_. “Oh my God,” she mumbles while opening the door and climbing off of him. “Fuck, fuck, fuck. Oh gosh.”

“Tessa,” he reaches his hand out and grabs her wrist. “Just wait.”

She shakes her head and her hair flies around her face. “No. I’m sorry. I don’t know why I did that, I--” 

“It’s just, Cassandra, and--” his eyes look about as frantic as she feels. 

_Cassandra._ Fuck. She’s just kissed Scott, and if making out with your skating partner and best friend of sixteen years isn’t bad enough, forcing yourself on someone who has a _girlfriend_ is worse. Tessa thinks she’s going to throw up. 

“I’m sorry,” she rushes out and there are tears welling up in her eyes. “I, Scott. I’m sorry.”

She rushes off, ripping her wrist from his grip and running into her house. The door supports her back once she gets inside, leaning herself against it and slowly sinking down. Tessa covers her mouth with the sleeve of her sweater and lets out a choked sob. 

Scott doesn’t drive her to physio the next day. 

~

Tessa promised herself from that day on that she’d never do anything stupid like that again. Except here she is, leaning in to kiss Scott in the middle of their kitchen after getting home from seeing Alton earlier in the day. 

_Alton._

She rips herself away from Scott and takes multiple steps backward, allowing space between she and him so she isn’t tempted to leap forward again and close the gap between them. Honestly, Scott should never be allowed to look at her the way that he did. 

“Fuck,” Tessa mumbles and reaches up to touch her lips that are still tingling. “I’m sorry.”

Scott shakes his head. “What the fuck, Tessa?”

She doesn’t know what to do or say to justify anything anymore. Not the way she’s trying to force herself to move on with Alton, not the way her body screams at her every day to grab onto Scott and never let him go. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I did that, I’m sorry.”

“You can’t keep doing this, Tessa.” Scott’s voice is low in warning, and she’s confused. Other than Canton and PyeongChang, she’s never done this with Scott. 

“Keep doing what?”

He laughs humourlessly. “Pulling me in to only let go. Making me think that I have a chance or something.”

His words ring through her head like a fire alarm. They’re loud and full of admittance. She has to slowly dissect it all. He wants a chance. She’s making him think he has one. He wants Tessa. She wants him. But they’re so ridiculous they can’t even get it together long enough to figure it all out. 

“I’m sorry, Scott.”

“Just--” he holds his hand out like they are going to protect him from her, like he needs protection from her. “Don’t do that shit again, unless you mean it.”

Tessa wants to cry because she does mean it. She’s meant it since she was nine and heartbroken because he broke up with her over the phone. She’s meant it since she was sixteen and wanting to experiment _everything_ with Scott and only Scott. She’s meant it since she was nineteen and in pain from both her legs and the distance between them. She’s meant it since she was twenty and on top of the world. She’s meant it since she was twenty four and feeling like the podium was going to swipe her feet from out under her. She’s meant it since she was twenty six and promising her entire life to not only their sport, but him. She’s meant it since she was twenty eight and giving birth to their child. 

But Scott can’t see it. And there’s something in her that can’t say it. So she lets him walk away, watches him climb the stairs and close the door of his bedroom. 

~

Alton’s nice enough. He treats her right, bringing flowers to her office and asking about Gwen’s antics every time they meet up without fail. She tries to move on with him, she really does. But Tessa finds falling out of love with the man that’s held her heart for twenty three years is harder than she thinks. 

Especially when she shares a daughter with him. People underestimate the power of attractive men with children. 

Gwen clings onto Scott and Tessa thinks maybe it’s because she’s gone a lot. Kelly’s been trying to get her as many modelling gigs as possible. She’s always liked to stay busy though, her mother has been asking her since she was nine if she’s getting enough sleep. Sometimes when Gwen looks at him like he’s hung all the stars in the sky, she’s stuck between feeling the same way and being just a tad jealous. 

“Dada, I love you,” Gwen says one night at dinner, out of the blue. 

Scott laughs and reaches over to pinch her cheeks. “I love you too, monkey. Now eat your peas.”

Gwen pouts and stares at her plate of greens before picking one up with her fingers and shoving it in her mouth. She’d do anything for Scott. Tessa feels very much the same way. 

“What do you think of taking her to Toronto this weekend?” Scott asks. 

Tessa rakes through her schedule in her mind, sorting through important dates and times that pop up in bright red letters. “Saturday should be good. What do you want to do there?”

“The Aquarium,” his smile is too big for Tessa to say no. 

They haven’t talked about the kiss, just like they never talked about the one in Canton, or the time in PyeongChang. That last one is harder, though, seeing as they have proof of the event sitting right beside them. It seems that they try to forget about it anyways, acting clueless about how babies are made. They’re brought in by storks, of course. 

Tessa’s not sure if the lack of communication around their feelings is a good or bad thing. For now it’s been okay. Scott still smiles at her and makes breakfast and pulls her in for hugs and cheek kisses, all the same. Nothing shifts between them. It’s like they’ve been living their whole lives knowing what each other feels like and doing nothing about it. She hates it. 

But this works between them, co-parenting and not letting their messy feelings interfere with their daughter’s wellbeing. She thinks that maybe this is the best way to raise a child, with your best friend, where falling in love isn’t a problem. (Tessa realizes that she lies to herself quite a bit).

~

Ripley’s Aquarium is absolutely packed, and it probably wasn’t the best idea to go on a chilly Saturday in February, but here they are. Tessa’s aware of all the faces and phones, more specifically the cameras that come with them. Gwen is still a mystery to the rest of Canada, somehow. They’ve been out and about in London with her, but it’s like an unspoken rule in the community to lean away from posting on social media or other outlets about them. They’ve received a few stares in public, but never any questions. 

Now that they’re in a big city, Tessa worries. But she doesn’t want to keep Gwen a secret for the rest of their lives. She wants to show her daughter the world and all it has to offer. Tessa wants to bring her to the Eiffel Tower and the London Eye and the Great Wall of China. She wants to show her the city of Tokyo and the warmth of LA. So it’s inevitable that Gwen will be exposed to the media and fans. 

Tessa thinks that they’re ready though. She and Scott talked about it a little bit, brought it up a few nights before the trip of how they’re going to approach the situation. With the truth. They stick with their plan from the very beginning. 

“Look at the fishies, Gwenie,” Scott whispers into her ear, pointing at the glass in front of them. He’s holding her up, bringing her face close to the tank that’s filled with so many colours it’s overwhelming. 

Gwen reaches a hand out and places it gently against the glass. “Fishy,” she says in awe. Watching Gwen discover the wonders of the world is probably Tessa’s favourite thing in the entire universe. 

Tess’ eyes dance around the room and there are a few people looking at them. She sees a couple staring right at her, the woman whispering to the man and gesturing in their direction. Her heartbeat speeds up and she’s sure they’re going to come up and say something to them, but they walk away after a moment. 

A hand sneaks up her spine and lands at her neck. “Just relax, babe,” Scott says into her ear and she’s jolted back in time to the podium at PyeongChang. 

“I’m relaxed,” she says to him, ignoring his concerned face in order to lean in and give Gwen a kiss on her cheek. She scrunches her face up and makes a noise of distaste before wiping the place where Tessa kissed. “Oh you’re fine, Gwen. Let mumma give you a kiss.”

Gwen stares at her with an expression that Scott’s given Tessa she doesn’t know how many times. It makes her laugh. “Mumma, no,” Gwen says sternly and points her little finger in Tessa’s face. “No, no, no.”

“Guinevere,” Scott warns and grabs her fist in his own. “Be nice. That’s your mother, you know. She carried you inside of her.”

The look Gwen gives Scott, like she has no idea what he’s saying, makes Tessa giggle. “You’re a tough guy,” Tessa teases and pinches Scott’s cheek. He pretends to bite her fingers and Gwen erupts in a fit of laughter. 

They move on to the stingrays and Gwen screams when Scott tries to put her hand in the water. Tessa soothes her and tries again, explaining exactly what she is doing with Gwen’s hand ( _you can’t just shove her into the water, Scott_ ) before leading her fingers to brush over the back of a stingray. At first Gwen snaps her hand back from the funny feeling, but minutes later Tessa’s practically prying her out of the water. 

After walking around for a little longer, Tessa lets Gwen down and watches as she walks around the jellyfish area. There’s practically no one around, allowing the girl freedom to run from tank to tank, placing her entire face against the glass to try and get a closer look. 

“Why are you licking the tank?” Scott asks in a stern voice when he catches her tongue poking out from her mouth. Tessa laughs when Gwen’s body shudders in fear and runs to his side to hug his legs. She’s such a daddy’s girl, it’s not even funny. 

No one approaches them, which brings Tessa a sense of peace. Maybe no one cares about them anymore, or there were no people that noticed the two skaters who used to be Canada’s Sweethearts. Whatever it is, Tessa finds herself enjoying the day completely. Even the meltdown that hits just as they’re leaving doesn’t put a dent in their day, especially when Scott scoops Gwen up like a football and carries her out laughing. 

It hits Tessa on the subway back to Kipling, looking at Scott leaning his head on the window with Gwen wrapped up in his arms, already fast asleep, that this is her future. Going on adventures with her best friend, the one person she’s already had the most excursions with, and their daughter. It seems like a pretty good idea to her. 

~

Tessa is an over-analyzer. So it’s inevitable that whenever Gwen sucks up to Scott (which is almost all of the time), irrational thoughts swim around in her head. Each time Gwen so much as bumps her knee, she comes running to Scott. Every time she draws, she proudly brings it to him (maybe it’s because he always _always_ puts it on the fridge after, even if it’s just scribbles of colour that end up half on the paper and half on their table). She finds herself talking about it with Scott one night. 

Gwen is feeding him the broccoli off of her plate, shoving it into his awaiting mouth and giggling as he obnoxiously chews. 

“I think she loves you more than me.” She’s pretty sure the tone in her voice gives away the fact that she’s not joking. 

Scott snaps his eyes to her. “What?”

Tessa sighs. “She’s always going to you first. I don’t know, it’s stupid.”

“Yeah, it is,” Scott affirms with a deep tone. “She loves you, Tess. How could she not?”

A shrug slips from her shoulders. “I’m just overthinking it, I guess.”

“Everyone loves you, Tessa. Your own daughter loves you the most,” Scott disperses her thoughts into dust when he reaches over the table and holds her hand. “Although, I do bring some competition.”

Tessa laughs and sticks her tongue out, watching as Gwen does the same thing to Scott. He whines about the girls ganging up on him and proceeds to lift Gwen out of her high chair and tickle her into a fit of giggles. 

And even though Scott’s earlier words dispelled most of her negative thoughts, what really does it is later on in the night when she’s tucking Gwen into bed. 

The doctor told Tessa when Gwen was younger that tummy time is helpful for babies, laying beside them on the floor and letting them crawl around and explore. She hasn’t done it in ages, ever since Gwen turned one and wouldn’t sit still for more than thirty seconds, but tonight she decides to lay down with her daughter beside her. 

It takes some time to settle her down. She’s been running around, refusing to get dressed in the footy pajamas Tessa picked out for her earlier. But after singing practically the entire soundtrack of Moana with her and having a dance break to _You’re Welcome_ , Gwen’s tuckered out beside Tess on the floor. 

She’s laying on her stomach, her eyes blinking slowly while Tessa runs her hand up and down her back. The moments like these are the ones that slot a space into Tessa’s memories the most. The ones where she feels so much love in her heart that it may be dangerous for her. Ever since she became a mother, it’s like everything she’s ever known has been altered. There’s no _just her_ anymore. She’s always been good at incorporating a _we_ into the equation, especially with Scott. But Gwen is like an extension of herself, and then some. 

Gwen reaches over with her hands and cups Tessa’s cheeks, leaving her a bit stunned. “I love you, mumma,” she whispers in a quiet voice. 

Tessa has to hold back tears. “I love you too, baby girl.”

It’s like Gwen knows, like she was able to take in the conversation between her and Scott earlier and understand her mother’s worries. The empathy of the little girl astonishes Tessa. Between the soft caresses she’s giving her cheeks and the way her eyes sparkle from the shine of the night light, Tessa can confidentially say that she has no worries about the state of her daughter’s love for her anymore.

~

Alton comes and goes like a season. He’s there like the biting cold of winter, coming slowly then all at once. But he disappears with the melting of the snow. He was like the warmth of her coffee in the morning, a nice comfort and jolt of energy, but dissipating quickly until there was nothing left. 

Tessa knows at the end of March that there’s no way she can love anyone but Scott Moir. It isn’t even worth it to try. Because every time she’s with Alton, she thinks of Scott. Because yeah, Alton’s nice, but Scott is nicer. And yeah, Alton brings her flowers, but they are roses which she hates. If it were Scott, he’d have tulips bundled on her desk in the office every morning. 

Yeah, Alton fucks her good and well, but he doesn’t know about the spot on her neck that drives her wild. He doesn’t know how to hold her hips just right. He doesn’t have hours upon hours of rapport built with her. He doesn’t know the deepest facets of herself, how her face can change minutely but show thousands of emotions and words in an expression. 

Scott knows her through and through. He knows when she creases her eyebrows she is frustrated. He knows that Tessa likes her coffee with two creams and one sugar. He knows about the time when Tessa was fifteen and she measured her waist every single day. And it’s not that he just knows about it, he helped her get through it. Made sure to feed her food every morning and tell her how beautiful she was. How beautiful she is. Scott knows what Tessa’s like when she’s upset, when she’s stressed, when she’s feeling at the top of the world. He’s seen her through the best and worst parts of her life.

There’s no one who could ever measure up to Scott Moir. 

The only thing is that Tessa has to silently live through the fact that they are going to just exist beside each other, quietly loving each other from afar. She’s scared. There’s so much that could happen if they try to do anything about it all. So Tessa decides to just continue being. To keep loving Scott and Gwen with all that’s in her. Even if she can’t kiss him or touch him, he’s still there. And by allowing them to become something so unfamiliar to them, she’s scared that for a moment she will have him how she wants, but it could fall apart to a place where they were months ago. Where they only spoke when they had to. She can’t lose him completely. 

Besides, if you love something, let it go. If it comes back, then it’s meant to be. 

~

“We should get a dog,” Scott says beside Tessa. 

“Absolutely not,” Tessa scoffs and shakes her head. 

Gwen’s in Jordan’s backyard, running around with their golden retriever named Dolly, with Kayleigh crawling quickly behind them. 

“Dolly’s great, Tess!” Jordan argues. “She teaches Kayleigh how to be gentle, and she is just so darn precious. It’s like Gwen can have her own buddy without having another kid.”

Tessa’s spine freezes at Jordan’s words. She’s never really thought about it, how Gwen won’t ever have a biological sibling. And she says biological because she has no clue where Scott’s mind is, if this is it for him or maybe he’ll go off and have kids with some other woman. Bile creeps up her throat at the thought. 

“See, Tess,” Scott pokes her side with his fingers and gestures to where Gwen’s rubbing Dolly’s stomach. “We should do it.”

Tessa purses her lips. “I’ll think about it.”

Two weeks later, they’re picking up a puppy from a local breeder. It’s a double doodle (a mix between a golden doodle and a labradoodle) and he kind of looks dopey with his curly hair flying everywhere, but Gwen absolutely loves him. Scott names him Maple ( _because of his fur colour, Tess, jeez_ ) and Tessa’s not sure at first. 

The first night is rough and reminds her of when they first brought Gwen home. Maple cries the whole night and Tessa is told to just let him whine it out. She gets maybe three hours of sleep. Between Maple crying and Gwen screaming, “Puppy! Shhhh!” from her room, it’s the longest night Tessa’s had in a while. 

She wakes up in the morning and immediately makes coffee. Scott’s already gone to the rink to coach Maggie and Lucas, and it seems that Maple’s calmed down. Tessa lets him out of his crate and he slowly crawls out, roaming around the room and sniffing things out. There’s a dog bed that Scott purchased the other day laying on the ground next to her spot on the couch. Maple settles his small body on it, curling into a little ball and closing his eyes. 

After turning on the TV and watching the news for a while, Tessa hears the pitter patter of little feet coming down the stairs. She watches as Gwen peaks her head over the banister and catches Tessa’s eyes with a blush. 

“What are you doing, Guinevere?” Tessa asks in a stern voice. She’s been waking up by herself lately, crawling out of her crib in a dangerous way that sent Tessa’s heart beating so fast the first time she caught her doing it. 

“It’s like everything is life or death, now,” Jordan astonished to her one day. Tessa couldn’t agree more. 

Gwen shyly continues to climb down the stairs and makes her way to where Tessa is sitting on the couch. She crawls up beside her and snuggles against her side, burying her face in Tess’ shirt. “Hi, mommy,” she mumbles and rubs her face against the material. 

“Baby, you gotta stop climbing out of bed like that.”

She looks up at Tess and pouts her lip. “Sorry,” Gwen whispers. Her eyes dance over to the bed where Maple is laying and her face lights up. It’s like she completely forgot about the new addition to their household. 

Gwen slips off the couch and slowly tiptoes over to the dog bed. Tessa watches her and is completely shocked when she just leans over and laughs at Maple. She can’t help but laugh too, is sent into bewilderment at her daughter’s reaction to the dog. 

Maple perks his head up and stands up to lick at Gwen’s face. The girl giggles and stumbles back to sit on her bum with the dog crawling into her lap, continuing to kiss at her face. “Puppy, puppy,” Gwen says through her giggles. “No, puppy.”

Scott walks through the door and sees the scene, Tessa and Gwen giggling while the dog continues his attack with his tongue on their daughter’s face. 

“See, I told you getting a dog would be a good idea,” Scott grins and rushes over to pet Maple’s head and tickle Gwen. 

“You were right,” Tessa gives it to him because the way he wanted to add to their little unconventional family warms her entire being. 

~

Jordan calls her over to her house on an afternoon where they hadn’t planned a visit. The second Tessa walks through the door her sister is buzzing with excitement, barely keeping Kayleigh perched on her hip. 

“Auntie Jo!” Gwen screams once the door opens and runs in to the house. 

“Hi, Gwenie,” Jordan smiles and pats the top of her head. Just barely though, seeing as the hair that the girl does have is piled at the top in a fluffy ponytail. 

Gwen immediately goes to the play room and Jordan places Kayleigh on the ground to follow after her cousin. Tessa let’s her sister grab her hand and drag her down the hallway to where their bathroom is. What? 

Her questions are answered when Jordan holds up a white stick with two pink lines streaked across it. “Holy shit, Jo,” Tessa breathes out. 

Jordan’s face sports this massive grin that Tess can’t help but reciprocate. “I know!” she squeals and brings her in for a hug. “I mean, we weren’t really trying. But I’m so excited, Tess.”

“I’m excited for you,” Tessa mumbles into her sister’s ear, kissing her cheek softly before pulling away. And yeah, Tessa’s absolutely ecstatic that her sister gets the opportunity to be graced by another bundle of joy, but there’s something that stirs deep inside of her. Some part of her that knows she’ll never get the opportunity to have another child. Not with Scott, at least. 

Jordan notices the way Tessa bites on her lip and flicks her eyes around the room. “What’s wrong, T?”

“Nothing,” she shakes her head and puts on a fake smile. 

Her sister sees right through her. “You’re upset. Is this because of Scott?” How does Jordan know absolutely everything? She sighs and rubs her hand up and down Tessa’s arm. “You two need to sort your shit out.”

“Our shit is sorted, everything is fine.”

“Is it though, T?” Jordan raises an eyebrow and really searches her face. “I know you want more. You can’t let yourself live the rest of your life fighting against what you want most. Life is too short, Tess. You of everyone should know that,” and the way she glances over at Gwen, so much healthier than how she first came into the world, indicates exactly what Jordan is talking about. 

“I’ll figure it out,” Tessa sighs. “But for now, let’s put bets down on whether or not it’s going to be a boy or a girl.”

Jordan grins. “God, I hope it’s a boy.”

~

Jordan’s words sit in the back of her mind for the rest of her week. They ring throughout her every time Scott does something that melts her heart. Which in other words means every second of every day. 

There’s this time when Maple poops on the floor and he grumbles while cleaning it up, yelling at the dog and then fondly cuddling him after because he was worried he was being too harsh with him. 

And then there’s the morning when Gwen wakes up with an awful cough and Scott rushes around the house trying to find extra blankets and cold medicine to make her feel better. From dawn until dusk he holds her, only puts her down twice when he needs to go to the bathroom. Even then he makes sure Tessa cradles Gwen, who’s still wrapped in a fuzzy pink blanket, so that the little girl knows she isn’t alone. 

Scott pouts when they’re at the park and Gwen starts to play with another little boy. He grumbles something about how he never though he’d be pulling her away from boys at such an early age. Tessa chuckles and fluffs his hair up, planting a kiss on his cheek before standing up and telling Gwen it’s time to leave. 

He also consistently fawns over Tessa, asking her about the sponsors she has coming soon and the gigs she’s got lined up for the next few months. Scott makes sure she’s fed and that she laughs at least ten times a day, even when she’s grumpy or exhausted. He takes her out one evening after dropping Gwen off at his mom’s house. 

They pull up to the skate club and Tessa can’t help but smile, because it seems that Scott always knows what she needs. She hasn’t been skating in months, not since a shoot she did in December, and has envied Scott every morning he wakes up and heads to the rink. When he hands her the white skates she’s so used to, her stomach flutters with anticipation. 

Stepping foot onto the ice is like coming home. Grabbing onto Scott’s hand while gliding around the rink is like second nature. Stroking along the boards and hyping herself up to jump into his arms is like a reflex that’s been engrained into her system. They try to recreate old programs, starting with Moulin Rouge and working their way backwards. The smile sneaks on her face so easily. 

“I’ve missed you out here, T,” Scott says to her after placing her down from a curve line lift. “Maggie and Lucas would really benefit from your input.”

Tessa chuckles. “You really do like coaching, don’t you?”

Scott’s eyes sparkle under the fluorescent lights of the arena. “Yeah, I do.”

“Would you ever go to Gadbois?”

He laughs. “Yeah, let’s go, start packing up Gwen’s room now. God knows how much shit she has.”

Tessa bites her lip. “I mean, by yourself. Without us.”

He looks stunned. “Never. Tess, I’d never go anywhere without you.” She nods silently. Scott sighs and reaches out, cupping her face. “What’s with you and thinking I’m going to leave, huh? What do I have to do to convince you that I’m here for the long run?”

Tessa doesn’t know what Scott could do. Maybe he could get down on one knee and slip a ring on her finger. Maybe he could merge their separate bedrooms into one. Maybe he could promise that there’s no one else for him. She already knows in the back of her mind that he is it for her. 

“I don’t know,” she settles on saying. 

“I’ll tell you every day for the rest of our lives that I’m not going anywhere,” he promises, and it sounds like enough for her. 

~

She follows through with promising Scott to come and coach Maggie and Lucas in the mornings. Tessa starts by coming once a week and she discovers how much more she likes doing this than sitting in an office every day, more than standing in front of a camera and faking her smiles and quotes plastered throughout magazines. 

Having her input seems to be helpful for the two, especially on Maggie’s end when it comes to knowing what she is feeling in the lifts and spins. Gwen is absolutely adorable, too. Tessa somehow found little skates that fit her feet, and she seems to take on her parents’ genes when she steps on the ice and only slips a few times before getting the hang of it. 

Each time Maggie smiles at her after landing a spin, or Lucas jumps up to slap a high five on her hand, Tessa thinks she could do this for the rest of her life. Especially watching Scott with the two, how he so flawlessly fixes their mistakes. He’s always been a natural at feedback, whether receiving or giving. 

“So, you wouldn’t move to Montreal with Marie and Patch?” Tessa asks hesitantly on their drive home from the rink. 

Scott sighs and looks at her. “Tessa, you know--”

“With us,” she cuts him off. “Gwen and I and you. All moving to Montreal.” Scott is silent, the only sound heard is the radio station and Gwen humming along to the song in the back seat. Tessa reaches out and places a hand on his arm. “I mean it, Scott. We could do it, you know? I see how much you love it. Besides, Maggie and Lucas are old enough to be juniors now. You could bring them with us. Or we could find new teams.”

“We?” Scott asks softly. His gaze glances over at Tessa and she blushes. 

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to assume. I just. I’ve missed the ice, Scotty. So much. I could see myself doing what we just did every single day until I could no longer stand on my own.”

Scott grins and a weight is lifted from her chest. “Me too, Tess.”

~

Gwen’s second birthday is celebrated a lot more quietly than the year before. There’s no fighting and no disaster waiting to happen. 

It starts with Tessa waking up to her alarm blaring beside her. There’s boxes all around the room, packed and labeled for when the moving truck comes tomorrow. She slowly crawls out of bed and pads into Scott’s bedroom. He’s still fast asleep under the blankets, his mouth slightly open and his hair mused around his face. Whenever he sleeps, ten years are taken off of him. 

“Scotty,” she whispers, kneeling beside the bed and brushing the hair from his eyes. He blinks his eyes open and smiles once he sees her. “We have a two year old,” is the first thing he says. 

Tessa giggles and kisses his forehead. “We do.”

They make pancakes with rainbow sprinkles in them. Scott insists on using the good maple syrup from the farmer’s market. She fights with him over who gets to wake her up and who gets to wait downstairs with the pancakes. They compromise by agreeing that no one needs to wait in the kitchen ( _the pancakes aren’t going to grow legs and walk away_ ), so they both climb the stairs with Maple hot on their heels. 

When the door creeks open, Tessa sees Gwen sprawled out on her back, her mouth open and hair absolutely everywhere. She looks just like Scott did when she woke him up earlier in the morning. 

“Guinevere,” Scott whispers and strokes her cheek, rousing her from sleep. She opens her eyes and Tessa smiles. “Happy birthday, monkey.”

Gwen smiles softly before closing her eyes again. She flips her body around and snuggles back into the blanket she has wrapped around her. Tessa laughs. “Gwen, wake up lovey. We made pancakes.”

The knowledge of her favourite food is what sends the girl sitting up straight, giggling when Maple gets too excited and hops into her bed. They recently transitioned it from a crib to a training bed, with higher edges still set to make sure she doesn’t slide out in the middle of the night.

Scott picks her up because even though she’s two now, she is still his little girl, and carries her downstairs. Gwen gasps when she sees the stack of pancakes with a pink candle on top. 

“Look, mommy! Sprinkles!” Gwen shouts and stares at Tessa with all the wonderment in the world packed on her face. 

“I know, baby,” Tessa smirks and kisses her cheek. “Daddy and I made them special just for you. Because it’s your special day.”

“My birthday,” she mumbles. Scott places her down to the floor and she tiptoes over to the chair with her designated booster seat clipped to it. 

Tessa is reminded how big she’s getting when Gwen’s able to climb up the chair herself, settling in and allowing Scott to push the seat into the table. He pulls out a lighter and sets the wick of the candle on fire. They both sing _Happy Birthday_ to her, and Tessa swoons when she mouths the words the whole time. Tess makes her think of a wish before blowing out the candle (she thanks God they aren’t sharing pancakes, knowing the amount of saliva that’s just been spat all over them). 

“What’d you wish for?” Scott asks while tickling Gwen’s side lightly. 

She giggles before looking up at him. “Another puppy.”

Scott laughs. “We’ll see about that,” he says. Maple barks from the corner like he’s trying to tell them that he’s in agreeance with the plan. Tessa’s not so much. 

They spend the rest of the day doing whatever Gwen wants. She eats her pancakes after Tessa cuts them into bite size pieces, listing all the different colours she can find in them. After cleaning up from breakfast, the three of them settle on the couch for a movie marathon consisting of Moana, The Little Mermaid, and The Emperor’s New Groove (the last one was definitely picked with a little pressure from Scott). Tessa’s pretty sure her favourite part of the day is when Gwen stands right in front of the TV ( _step back, honey, you’re going to hurt your eyes_ ) and belts out Part of Your World.

At night, they settle in the backyard on lawn chairs. Fireworks boom above them from neighbours and local parks. Tessa lets Gwen hold a sparkler, with her help of course, and Maple cowers under her chair the whole time. The puppy has grown a liking to Tessa, and even though she was indifferent about him at first, she now reaches down and buries her fingers in his fur to comfort him. He licks at her hand appreciatively. 

“Say goodbye to the backyard,” Scott says to Gwen when they’re packing up for the night. 

She’s grown restless from her exhaustion (they let her skip out on the afternoon nap) and the bugs that have started to swarm around her. But nonetheless, she waves to the trees and the grass. “Bye bye, yard.”

Tessa tucks her in tightly, pulling a blanket up to her chin and tucking in all the sides around her small body. Before she leaves, Gwen reaches up and holds her face. “Thank you, mumma. I love you.”

“I love you, too, my precious little two year old.”

A kiss is placed on Gwen’s cheek before she closes the door softly.

She’s anxious that night, but then again she usually is before making life changing decisions. Tessa remembers when she told Scott about her pregnancy, how it seemed like she didn’t sleep for days. Her mind is sent back in time to when Gwen was still in the hospital as a preemie, how she’d toss and turn and not be able to get to sleep until she was beside Scott. 

When she slides into bed beside him, she whispers to him, “One last time before the move.”

Scott doesn’t complain, just throws his arm around her waist and pulls her in tightly. She thinks that maybe when they get to Montreal, they can share a bedroom instead of pretending that they don’t want to fall asleep with the last image of their head being of each other. 


	5. forever.

The first night in Montreal is not the most conventional.

The move itself went perfectly fine, time moving along quite perfectly, each of the tasks that they needed to completed being checked off in perfect order, all from the list Tessa made weeks ago. Scott thinks tonight he’ll have to massage her shoulders from how tense she was the whole time. Tess insisted she drive the long six hours to their new home, fingers clutching the wheel the whole time and eyes flicking from the road to the rear-view mirror where Gwen was in perfect view.

When they arrive to their new home, Gwen immediately runs around, pointing out where she wants to put her new toys and that her colouring table should go _over there, momma_. Scott watches with bated breaths, figuring out how he’s going to make this house their new home. But then again, he could be absolutely anywhere and feel right at home with Tessa and their daughter by his side.

Once they’ve got all their boxes piled in the house, after ordering in dinner and eating at a table that’s partially made up, Tessa prepares Gwen for bed. She slips easily into her pajamas and Scott’s pretty sure he catches the way her eyes droop in exhaustion. He feels the same thing from their long day of exertion, moving their entire lives to a new city. It’s familiar to him and Tessa, but everything is so new for Gwen.

They go their separate ways after pulling a few items from boxes and placing them around the house, saying goodnight to each other and heading into their respective bedrooms. Scott makes his bed quickly, plopping under the covers after stripping himself of his shirt and jeans. He’s asleep for maybe three hours before there’s a cry heard in the hallway, long and loud and so distinctly Gwen.

He lurches out of bed, pulling open his door at the exact same time Tessa does the same to her own that’s situated right across from his. Gwen is sat on the ground, her legs crossed and bum plopped onto the carpeted floor. She has fat tears streaming down her face, is sniffling instead of wailing now that she sees both of her parents standing in front of her.

Tessa bends down and squats beside Gwen, pushing the stray pieces of hair back from her face, the strands now soaked with her tears. “Baby, what’s wrong?” she asks softly, stroking her chubby and red cheeks.

Gwen sniffles, her tiny nose scrunching up with the action that reminds him so much of Tessa. “The door, momma,” she cries, pointing to the engrained wood. “It close. Daddy,” her eyes flip to him, the green colour so much clearer with her tears shining against the dull hallway light he’s flicked on. “That closed too.”

The pout on her face goes straight to his heart. She’s stuck in the middle of the hallway crying because Tessa and Scott closed their doors in an unfamiliar house that she has no clue how to navigate. Their daughter is stuck in the middle of the two, whipping her head back and forth because she can’t _decide_. The confliction sends his head reeling, thinking about years ahead when Gwen will have to make so many choices between them.

“Oh love,” Tessa mumbles her words against Gwen’s temple, giving her a kiss in the same spot.

She looks up at Scott, eyes pleading for him to help her out. “Let’s build a fort,” he blurts out, watching as Tessa’s eyes widen and Gwen looks up at him curiously. “We can sleep in the family room tonight together, yeah?”

Gwen grins, big and wide, standing up and pumping her fists in the air while chanting _fort_ over and over again. He is unsure if she knows exactly what a fort is, but nevertheless, seeing her tears dried and that smile back on her face is everything.

Scott gathers up the blankets and pillows from his room, piling them in the middle of the family room and wrapping sheets and comforters across couches and stacked chairs. Tessa watches from afar, Gwen perched on her hip. There are moments where she’ll comment on one of his placements, telling him to pull a sheet up or move a pillow to the left.

It’s twenty minutes later and they’re settled on an air mattress at the center of their new family room, boxes still stacked around the house and a large red sheet draped over them. Gwen is already sleeping in between Tessa and Scott, her face resting on the skin of Tessa’s chest, just below her collar bone. Scott just stares at the two people he loves most in the world, soundly unaware of the world around them.

He realizes when Tessa looks over at him, blinking softly and mouthing a _goodnight_ , that it is more than a little overwhelming to have your entire world right before your eyes.

~

Scott wakes up in the morning to the smell of pancakes and the popping of bacon in a frying pan. His eyes slowly blink open and take in the surroundings, first catching sight of the red sheet and remembering the events from the night before. All of a sudden, a tiny face is in front of his and there are bony knees digging into his chest.

“Morning, dada!” Gwen shouts, bouncing up and down with her knees slicing further into his chest. He groans and grabs her quickly, flipping her tiny body so it’s lying beside him instead of on top. “Dada, stop!” she screeches when he starts tickling her.

Scott just hollers and continues his assault, running his fingers all along her tiny body and basking in the giggles that fill the air. He glances up and sees Gwen’s tiny colouring table set up in the corner of the room, a plate filled with chocolate chip pancakes and a glass of milk sitting on top.

“Gwen!” He can’t see her, but Tessa’s voice is shouting from what he assumes is the kitchen. “Come eat your breakfast, please.”

Their little girl obeys quickly, launching out from under Scott’s hands and stumbling to the table. She pulls the chair out easily, settling herself in her seat and forking at the bite sized pieces Tessa assumedly cut up for her. As she munches away, Scott scoots out from the fort and actually sees Tessa. She’s got her hair pulled up in a bun on the top of her head, flannel pajama shorts tied around her waist and—is that _his shirt_? Sure enough, when she turns around he catches sight of the skate shop logo and his heart doubles in size. He’d never thought that this would be a sight he would ever be seeing; Tessa dressed in his clothes, holding a spatula and making perfectly golden pancakes, their daughter a few feet away. Scott’s pretty sure that even though he wasn’t prepared for it, he would happily take the scene every morning for the rest of his life.

He finally gets up and walks over to the kitchen, balances his hip on the counter carefully and watches over Tessa. She lets him stare for a while until looking up and smirking at him. “What? Is there something on my face?”

“Yeah,” he mutters, leaning forward to lick a dab of pancake mix that was sitting on her cheek. She scrunches her nose up and makes a face of distaste, pushes against his chest with the spatula and tells him to _get out of my kitchen_. Scott doesn’t have it in himself to correct her and say _our, it’s our kitchen_.

Everything has always been an _our_ for them. Our medals, our journey, our skating, our lives, our partnership. There are a lot more to add to the list now. Our house, our kitchen, our daughter, our family. They still haven’t added an our bedroom or an our marriage or an our love yet. But he’s working on it.

~

Montreal is different.

It’s different because they are in a new home that they have to start from scratch to make their own. Tessa spends hours and hours fixing little things here and there, adding touches that Scott wouldn’t have even though of in order to make the house a home. She puts up pictures of them from their skating days, with snapshots of Gwen intermingled amongst them all. His favourite has to be the picture she hangs up at the entrance to their home. It’s of all three of them at one of Danny’s kid’s birthday parties. Scott’s sitting on a lawn chair with Tessa perched on his knees, Gwen smiling widely on his empty thigh, her tiny little body snuggled against his chest. They all look so happy it’s tooth-rotting.

It’s different because his job now is to actually go into Gadbois every morning to coach partners. Scott flits between two junior teams and a senior who has recently joined the section. They are all so patient with him, listening intently to each of his instructions and practicing until his smile is visible to them all. Sometimes he brings Gwen along, watches as she sits on the side lines and colours messily in her Disney Princess book. Most days Tessa is by his side on the ice, just like they always have been. Except this time instead of listening to the instructions of another, they are the ones vocalizing. Scott always thought that he would be the one doing this, and that Tessa would be off doing her own thing, saying profound things in magazines with cheesy photoshoots to tag along with the paragraphs of writing. But then again, Scott always thought they’d end up with different lives, one that didn’t include a shared daughter and a house that’s become their home. So, what does he actually know anymore?

(He actually knows a lot. Like how his heart beats solely to the rhythm of _Gwen_ and _Tessa_. He knows that he would jump in front of a moving train for the both of them. He knows that there needs to be something done about how much he feels for his partner in _everything_. But he also knows that he is scared. He also knows that he would rather have Tessa in his life just like this than not have her at all.)

It’s different because Gwen is getting older and growing right in front of his eyes. Each morning he wakes up it’s like she has aged ten months instead of ten hours. Her vocabulary is increasing, she can easily walk around wherever she pleases (which is more of a struggle than a success, if he is quite honest). It floors him every time she does something that he isn’t expecting, which happens frequently considering that she is the most determined child in, probably, the entire world. Put together the genes of two of the greatest ice dancers and Gwen is exactly what you get. Determined, passionate, calculated, and careful. How she purses her lips before deciding her next move. How she never does anything unless she absolutely wants to.

Montreal is different in so many ways, but in some ways, it is the same.

It is the same because Scott is still so in love with Tessa that it hurts. He watches her every move, when she dresses for work early in the morning, kissing Gwen on the forehead and patting the top of his own. Maple will sometimes bark and chase after her if she forgets about him, so she’ll laugh and bend down to kiss his wet nose while petting his back. He takes in the way she carries herself perfectly, just as she always has. Tessa is the greatest mother, giving all of her love to Gwen as if she is the most precious thing in the universe (Scott knows it’s true, but he wishes that she’d give just a little of her love to him).

Scott remembers a time around midway in their career, when Danny had his first kid and Tessa came over to meet his nephew. She held baby Charlotte in her arms, looking more fearful than she ever had before a competition. He nudged her with his arm and Tess looked up at him, mouthed a _what_ as he laughed.

“You okay?” he asked her while leaning down to brush his finger along Charlotte’s cheek. She was the chubbiest baby.

Tessa shrugged, lightly shifting Charlotte in her arms. “I’m just… not a baby person.”

“Really?” Scott raised his eyebrow and took the baby from her. Charlotte opened her eyes for a moment and squirmed around in his arms before he shushed her quietly. A smile settled on her face shortly after. “Babies are the best. I can’t wait to have at least six.”

Tessa scoffed. “Have fun with that. I’m not sure I’d be a great mother.”

“Nonsense,” he shook his head. “You’d be amazing.”

She looked up at him, eyes full of something he never was able to narrow down. “How do you know that?”

“Because you’re great at everything you do.”

Scott wasn’t wrong.

Montreal is the same because at the end of the night, him and Tessa separate into their respective bedrooms and fall asleep without each other. It’s the same because he keeps quiet, not bringing up his thoughts about how happy they could be if they just cross that imaginary line in the sand. It’s the same because Gwen has a mom, and she has a dad, but not a _momanddad_. Scott wonders if she will grow up confused. Loved, yes, of course. She is probably the most loved little girl in the world. But it keeps him awake some nights thinking about how Gwen will explain their… _situation_ in the future. It’s normal to her, but it is anything but to everyone else.

Even their families still give raised eyebrows, especially after they announced their sudden move to Montreal in order to coach together at Gadbois with Marie and Patch. They didn’t say anything to them, but the reactions from both of their mother’s said a million words. Scott believes all of those words have gone unspoken for twenty-two years, at least.

(Just like those three words he is dying to say to her.)

~

Somehow, and Scott knew this was coming, the media gets their hands on a blurry picture of him, Tessa, and Gwen walking through a grocery store near their new home.

Tessa panics, of course she does, but Scott stays level. For as much as they used to be the opposite, him the heart and her the head, now that they’ve grown older and have the weight of raising another human being on their shoulders, there is more give and take. He finds himself at times being more level headed while she takes on the emotions of the situation.

Such as this one, when she is calling their agent and asking about what they should do. He suggests a radio interview, just one confirming what the world can already see. Even if the picture is under pixelated (a new word Scott learns), Gwen is so distinctly an amalgamation of them. Her green eyes, the pointy noise, her tiny stature.

So, they do the phone interview. Tessa sets it up with a local radio station that resides in London and they call in one afternoon, with Gwen playing on the ground in front of them.

“Tessa and Scott!” The interviewer, Freddy, shouts excitedly. “How are you two?”

“We are doing great,” Tessa responds, and even though it is just her voice being projected, she still has her media ready smile plastered on her face. The tone in her voice changes to that high pitched one he knows like the back of his hand. “How are you?”

“Wonderful, thank you,” Freddy replies. His voice is crackly, and Scott has to strain in order to hear his questions. “Hey, listen, thanks so much for doing this you guys. When you fell off the face of the earth we all were a little concerned.”

Scott laughs (pretty forced, mind you). “Well we are busy picking up new projects and moving to Montreal to pursue other endeavors.”

“Other endeavors,” Freddy repeats, and Scott knows what’s coming. “Is that what you call the girl in the picture currently posted on the front page of all of Canada’s biggest newspapers.”

Tessa winces and Scott reaches out to rub at her neck. Hopefully his touch can ease some of the tension she is carrying. “I guess you could,” she says quietly. They talked about who would carry _this_ part of the conversation and agreed that Tessa would be the best. She’s always been so eloquent with her words and it’s no doubt she has a way with interviewers, a way of getting exactly what she wants from the conversation. “I did give birth to a beautiful little girl just over two years ago. Her name is Guinevere and she is the love of my life.” She pauses and looks at Scott. “Of our lives.”

“So she is both of yours?” Freddy asks.

There is a quiet that settles over them and Gwen looks up at the two of them. Scott sticks his tongue out at her and she squeals a giggle, picking herself up off the ground and toddling towards them. Tessa laughs softly. “Yes, she is both of ours. It was an… interesting situation. But I guess what we have to say is that we are still the best of friends and are indeed not together romantically.”

Freddy laughs on the other end and Scott’s pretty sure he can hear other voices from the radio station joining in. “Come on, you guys. If we didn’t believe you two before that you weren’t together, what makes you think we believe you now that you have a child together?”

Scott is the one wincing this time. “We know it’s a little strange. Our own mothers are still questioning us.” An elbow hits him in the side and he huffs out a breath of air. When he looks over to his left, Tessa has a glare focused on him that could kill. “But, uhm. We know that this works for us. The two of us love and adore Gwen, she is the most important thing in the world to us. Honestly, we don’t care what people think. All that we know is our daughter is going to live a happy and healthy life, and we are going to be with her, co-parenting, sharing love and responsibilities.” And, lying through his teeth (which is something he has been an expert at for years and years and years), he says, “We love Gwen, and we love each other, but just in ways that are not conventional to the rest of society.”

He lies because he does love Tessa. He loves her with his whole being and he wants the conventional way. Scott wants the marriage and the shared kisses and the forever after that he’s dreamed of his entire life. He wants late nights snuggled in bed and early mornings when their breaths smell equally bad but neither of them cares. He wants _sex_ ; sleepy sex and hungry sex and passionate sex and rough sex and soft sex and everything in between. He wants Tessa, with no boundaries, no worries, no unexpressed miseries.

And, for the first time in his life, he wonders why he can’t.

~

That night, Tessa posts a picture of Gwen and him on Instagram. Between snapshots from her different magazine covers and sponsorships, and throwback pictures from when she was a young girl or past competitions of theirs. It’s a candid shot (another word he learned through the years of media training, mostly from Tess), one taken pretty recently. Scott had no idea she even had it in her camera roll, but once he gets the notification that she tagged him in a picture, it glares at him through the bright screen.

It’s taken from the side, his profile on display. He is in their kitchen, an old Blue Jays t-shirt on and plaid pajama pants, a towel thrown over his shoulder. There’s a spatula in one hand, and in the other is their little girl. She’s staring up at him with these wide green eyes that seem to twinkle even through the still image. And Scott is looking down at the frying pan in front of him.

The picture is a perfect image of domesticity, but it feels more immense than he can put a finger on. Maybe it’s the depth of it, or even the stupid filter she chose (black and white, she’s always been a sucker for those kinds of photos). Nonetheless, it makes him smile in his bed, staring at his phone in the dark looking like a fool.

Then he looks at the caption. So simple. So little words. But it punches him in the gut, all the air in his lungs pushing out at once.

_I mean it._

~

They become even more painfully domestic throughout their time in Montreal. A routine is instilled in their home, and it goes a little something like this.

Morning.

Scott usually wakes up first, if not, then Gwen happily crawls into his bed around six in the morning, acting like is own personal alarm. The girl learned long ago to not wake her mother up until she absolutely needed to, unless they have a grumpy Tessa for the rest of the day (or until she can fit a nap in. Scott wonders who the two-year-old is in the house). He’ll get up and, if she’s not already awake, creep into Gwen’s room and rouse her from sleep with soft kisses to her face.

She’ll giggle and whisper a quiet _dadda_ while reaching up to brush her tiny hands over his face. Scott will kiss her palm and pick her up, little legs wrapping around his waist and her head burying in his neck. He’ll carry her down the stairs, walking quietly past Tessa’s door, and into the kitchen. They’ll then have a lengthy conversation about what breakfast will be, and no matter how much Scott fights, it almost always ends with blueberry pancakes with a side of chopped up bananas and vanilla yogurt.

Shortly after breakfast is made, Tessa usually is downstairs by the time Gwen is on her second pancake. Scott will give her a kiss on the temple and she’ll pat the skin just above his bum (sometimes she is so sleepy her hand actually makes impact with his ass, not that he minds). He will serve her coffee and pain au chocolat (she made him learn how to make the dish years ago and he thinks that there is no way he’ll ever forget), and she will thank him with a smile, which is the greatest reward of them all.

Scott pulls his chair up to the table and eats his own breakfast (usually a green smoothie and bowl of oatmeal with cut up strawberries scattered around it), watching his girls have quiet conversations.

_What are your plans today, love?_

_Drawing!_

_Are you going to wear pants or a skirt today?_

_Panda pants!_

_Who is momma’s girl?_

With chubby hands shyly pointing at her chest, fingers splayed across the Ariel’s face; _Me._

(His heart grows ten sizes every time he sees the interaction, happily watching in silence and falling more and more in love with both of them.)

Scott will clean up the dishes while Tessa brings Gwen up the stairs, narrowly avoiding her sticky fingers, and gets her ready for the day. Once he is all finished wiping down the counters, he heads back to his room and dresses for the rink. It doesn’t take long before Tessa will be seen in the hallway, dressed in her own athletic wear and Gwen perched on her hip with panda pants and a fuzzy pink sweater that most definitely says Baby North Face on the chest.

Afternoon.

After arriving at the rink and warming up with teams, Tessa and Scott will take a break with Gwen and feed her lunch.

They’ll watch their juniors improve with every stroke, every tip, every adjustment. Tessa arches her body and strains her neck to show them how to move. Scott skates up beside her and brushes his hands against her body parts to accentuate exactly what she is demonstrating to them. Gwen happily plays with toys in the penalty box (everyone laughs that it’s become her new play place) and Scott makes sure to glance at her every minute or so. Sometimes Billy Rose will show up and sit with her, colouring or watching the other skaters intently through the glass.

His favourite part of the day, though, is just after lunch. Usually Gwen has enough energy around this time and so they lace her up in tiny white skates and place her on the ice. She’ll hold tightly onto Scott and Tessa’s hands, settled in the middle of her parents. The giggles that escape her are his favourite sound in the world (other than the whimpers he faintly remembers Tessa making so long ago, in another continent, in what feels like another time).

Then Tessa will go and put Gwen down for a nap on the couch in their shared office ( _our office_ , another to add to the list of _ours_ ). He’ll work on the technical aspects with the seniors, working out the kinks in lifts and other elements that the ISU now requires of teams (he still scoffs at the choreographic sliding element). Halfway through nap time, him and Tessa will switch places (always the greatest at co-parenting), and he will sit in the office and deal with business issues while she works through choreographic elements and the artistic side of the programs.

Evening.

Long hours at the rink build up. Scott always remembered willing the end of the day to come when he was younger and training in Ilderton, Kitchener, Canton. He’d rush the days by and watch the clock intently, the hands moving at a snail’s pace around the face. It led to being distracted, which Tessa used to deal with by smacking his arm and glaring at him.

But now, the days go by with a blink of an eye. Sooner rather than later, Tessa is telling the teams to pack up and is gathering Gwen and their multiple bags. Scott thinks it is because he is doing something he loves, using his talent to improve other teams rather than listen to coaches ramble about what he is doing wrong. It doesn’t hurt that he’ll hear the giggles of his daughter float through the rafters, or watch the woman he loves use her body so beautifully to explain an element.

Before he even realizes it, he’ll be back in their home, cooking dinner, Maple sitting at his feet and him sneaking little bits of cooked bacon and raw veggies to the dog, and listening to Tessa talk about the day. She used to love debriefing their training days, and that hasn’t changed at all. While he drifts about the kitchen, she’ll pull apart how a team’s chemistry is coming, or point out a lift that their seniors need to adjust. Tessa used to do that in the beginning, when they first moved to Canton. She’d invite him over and watch as he cooked her some food ( _you need to eat a real meal, T_ ), picking apart what worked during the day and what didn’t, how she wants to improve in the future, things she noticed between them. It was also the time they would also go over any rifts between them, especially at the beginning. She would bring up something he said that she didn’t like, he would apologize and promise to do better for her.

The one thing that has changed is the little girl that sits in Tessa’s lap, watching her father cook and squealing whenever he makes a funny face at her.

“Scott,” Tessa will scold with a stern face.

“I’m listening, I promise! Georgia did an awesome job today with her facial expressions,” He’ll defend himself.

She always smiles and nods, kissing Gwen on the top of her head and continuing on with her daily critiques.

And then, when Scott is finished with their meal, they sit around the table and eat in relative quiet. Tessa will leave the skating talk to stay in the past, not wanting to bring the rink home too much. She reminded him when they embarked on this new adventure, of moving to Montreal, how the only way she got through being an athlete because her home was skating free. Scott had to ask for a compromise, because him on the other hand lives and breathes the sport. So, she agreed that the time before dinner is when they could talk about their days at the rink, but after they sat down at the dining room table, the talk stopped.

So, Scott will listen to Tessa talk about something her mom told her about someone they knew from the past. He will bring up the statistics of the Leafs’ next game and she will nod along as if she understands most of what he is saying. Gwen will babble about who knows what, but the both of them will stare at her intently and help her sound out words that she attempts to speak.

They will clean up dinner together, Gwen settled on the floor in the family room with Treehouse playing on a loop in the background. He’ll splash her with the dirty sink water and she’ll yell his name. But then, later on, will get her revenge when she twists the dish rag and smack his upper thigh with it, making him jump and yelp.

Then, and this is probably his second favourite part of the day, next to skating with Tessa and their daughter, is bath time. Most nights go smoothly, Gwen loving to splash around in the tub and soap her hair up with shampoo ( _it smell good, dadda_ ).

One night, she gets so into playing mermaid that she splashes a whole heap of water over the lip of the tub, soaking not only the floor but also Scott in the process. She looks up at him with wide eyes and lets out a quiet, “Oops.”

“It’s okay, baby girl,” he tells her and gives her a kiss on the cheek, lips coming away wet from the drops of water still clinging to her skin. Scott quickly grabs some towels and strips his shirt and then jeans, wrapping the towel around his waist and securing it tightly.

Tessa comes in with the speaker and her phone in hand, saying, “Okay kiddo, which playlist do you want—why are you naked?”

He laughs loudly and she scrunches her nose up, quite adorably, mind you. “We had a little oopsies while playing mermaid and soaked dadda to the bone, huh?” Scott says, mostly looking at Gwen the whole time.

The little girl just giggles and shrugs her shoulders, continuing to play with the rubber duck and Barbie she has in her tiny hands. Tessa snorts and shakes her head before turning on the speaker and pushing play. A familiar album begins to play and Scott groans. Tessa glares at him and says in a defensive tone, “Oh, come on.”

“Really, T? Hall and Oates?”

“After all of these years you should be used to it by now,” she states while walking over to the tub, sitting on the step stool that Gwen uses to reach the sink.

Scott scoffs. “Just because you’ve played it almost every day for the past twenty-three years doesn’t mean my ears stop bleeding every time it comes on.”

She doesn’t respond, just reaches out and smacks his shoulder. He works quick though, grabbing her wrist and pretending to bite at the skin there. Tessa squirms in his grip and squeals which, in turn, grabs the attention of Gwen.

“No, dadda,” she scolds him firmly and Scott immediately drops Tessa’s hand. “Don’t hurt mamma. Bad.”

He tries to keep a straight face but knows that he cracks a smile or two in the process. From the way Tessa’s body is shaking beside him, he can guess she is trying (and failing) to do the same. “Sorry monkey.”

The rest of bath time goes smoothly, Tessa easily washing Gwen’s hair and the both of them listen to her try and hum along with the music that she recognizes (from it being overplayed, Scott argues). When it’s time to drain the tub, he wraps Gwen up in her towel, the one with the little hood with hears on it, making her look like a cute little bear (albeit, a purple and pink bear). He pulls her out of the tub and just as he is doing so, _You Make My Dreams Come True_ starts playing through the speakers.

Gwen whines and points to the mirror, legs kicking about against Scott’s stomach. He looks at Tessa and she gives him the same look back. The one that says _I have no idea what she is thinking_. Scott walks over to the large wall mirror and stands in front of it. What comes next shocks him into a fit of laughter.

Their daughter opens her mouth and starts mouthing along with the lyrics, her little lips perfectly forming the words being sung. Tessa starts to giggle beside them and he’s pretty sure he catches her pulling her phone from the counter and holding it up. Scott, ever the indulger, begins swaying back and forth with Gwen still in his arms, also mouthing along to the song. He has to sneak a few kisses to her head in because she is being so flipping cute that he can only swoon when he isn’t lip-syncing.

~

Bed time can either be an absolute nightmare or a dream, there really is no in between. Some nights, once the word _bed_ is even so much as uttered, Gwen will begin kicking and screaming, quite literally. She’ll put up a good fight, refusing to stay in her bed and running up and down the stairs to try and distract Tessa and Scott. But, like the good team they have always been, with a little coercion and convincing, they can usually get her settled under the covers.

Tonight is one of their lucky nights, where her mood is on the complete opposite end of the spectrum. Once dressing her into her pajamas, Scott watches as Tessa cradles Gwen and sits on the rocking chair in the corner of her room.

“What book tonight, love?” Tessa whispers into her ear, planting a soft kiss there.

Gwen yawns tiredly, chubby hands rubbing at her eyes. “Goodnight Moon,” she eventually gets out.

Scott nods, walks over to the bookshelf and picks up the book his daughter asked for. He then shuffles across the carpet and hands it over to Tessa, sitting cross-legged on the floor next to the chair. Tessa pries open the cover of the book, whispering the title and then the rest of the lines across the different pages. At one point, he places he head on her thigh and reaches up to hold onto Gwen’s little hand. He feels fingers, not belonging to the little girl, raking through his hair and scratching against his scalp exactly how he likes it. His thumb rubs at Gwen’s hand and his other hand comes up to massage the back of Tessa’s right calf. He used to do this, long ago, when she was desperate to alleviate some pain and no one else was around. The knowledge of how to do it properly still balances in his fingertips, and soon enough the three of them are connected. They intertwine like tree vines, not knowing where one person starts and the other ends.

When Tessa finishes the book, he reluctantly pulls his head off her leg and looks up. She is staring at him, eyes sparkling in the dim lamp light. He smiles and stands up, reaches over and plucks a sleeping Gwen from her lap and walks the short distance to tuck her in bed. Tessa follows closely, her hand resting on his lower back, fingers subconsciously brushing over and over the material of his shirt.

They both kiss her on the forehead once before turning the lamp off and walking out of the room, closing the door shut tightly behind them.

“Look,” she says later on when they are both settled on the couch in the family room. It’s her turn to get head scratches, Tessa’s head in his lap and his fingers tangled in her hair. A phone is thrusted in his face and he lets his eyes adjust, seeing him with Gwen in his arms, the both of them swaying to the music and lips moving along to the lyrics. His face spreads with a wide smile, stating his approval. “I’m gonna post it on Instagram.”

He groans. “And ruin my reputation of liking good music?”

A hand whacks against his chest lightly. “Shut up.”

And then, like every night, they part in the hallway. He wonders how many times he can let her go, can watch her close the door in his face, before he breaks.

~

Apparently not long.

They are sitting on the couch the next night, watching some TV show he isn’t really paying much attention to, when her phone rings. She picks it up in her hands, looks at it curiously. Obviously, she wasn’t expecting a call.

“Hello?” she answers while sitting up and walking away into the room adjacent.

Scott wonders who it is but forgets to worry too much when something on the television catches his eye. A few minutes later, she comes back into the room with the phone dangling in her fingers and her lips pursed. He laughs and asks, “Who was it? Grandpa Mac? You look like you’ve just talked to a ghost.”

“No, uhm,” she clears her throat and he sits up slowly. Something’s wrong. “It was Alton, actually.”

The name zings up his spine like he’s just been electrocuted. He had no idea she was still talking to him. In fact, he thought that ended a while ago. What was it that she said? He came and went like a season. But not he is calling her again and she looked concerned about it.

“Why?” he asks softly, like he doesn’t want to hear the answer. Actually, he in fact does not want to hear the reasoning as to why the man is suddenly popping back into her life.

“He wanted to talk,” she says and he has to hold back a scoff. No man calls a woman he used to date just to talk. “He asked how I am. How Gwen is. Apparently, he didn’t know that I moved to Montreal, so he was wondering about that.”

“What did he want, Tess?” His voice is probably sharper than it needs to be, but dammit, if he doesn’t want answers.

She shrugs. “He said he messed up by letting me go.”

A pause, where the only sounds are the TV still running that show and he swears Gwen’s little snores can be heard from upstairs. Then he forces his mouth open. “And what did you say.”

And then his world changes.

“I said I already have everything I could ever need right in front of me.”

Scott snaps. He acts without thinking, lurching off the couch and taking three big steps to meet her. His hands grip her face, pulling her in until their lips are centimeters a part.

“Tell me no,” he whispers, breath brushing against her face.

Her chest heaves against his own, eyes blown wide and so _so_ green. “You told me the last time I kissed you that if I were to do it again, that I had to mean it.” _Now is not the time to reflect on stupid decisions_ , he thinks. But he doesn’t stop her. “I mean it, Scott. I’ve meant it since I was seventeen years old. I just—I’ve been so blind. And I thought I could go through life with you just as my best friend, but I can’t, I—”

“Tess.”

“Scott,” she says his name and it feels like everything. “I mean it. Do you?”

Instead of answering her with words, he engulfs her lips with his own. He tries to force everything into one kiss, all of the hurt and the love and the commitment and the pain that they have ever been through. Scott forces in his feelings in PyeongChang, when they made the greatest thing to ever happen to him. He pushes his tongue in her mouth and it represents his fears right after Gwen was born, when they had no idea whether she would make it or not. He pushes her against the wall and it’s the pain he’s felt from holding back, from not allowing himself this one part of Tessa that he’s wanted long before he realized it. He picks her up, hands under her thighs, and bites her bottom lip, the taste of blood that beats through his stream, that keeps him alive; just like she does.

Scott carries Tessa up the stairs, his shirt being pulled off on the way up and thrown somewhere below them. Tessa whines and cants against his hips. He has to pinch her bum because if she keeps doing that, he isn’t going to last very long, and he wants to make this about her. He wants her to know how she is everything to him.

He lays her out on the bed (her bed, because she’s always had better taste in sheets) after pulling her silk pajama top off. She’s not wearing a bra underneath because why would she, but it still leaves him breathless. “I love you,” he blurts out, not realizing the weight of his words.

Tessa just stares up at him, her eyes widening and lips parting on a soft gasp. Her eyes latch onto his face for what feels like an eternity before she giggles, and breathlessly responds, “I love you. God, Scott, I love you so much.”

Tears well up in his eyes and, fuck, he is not going to cry while having sex with Tessa. But his eyes betray him when he tries to bury his face in the skin of her stomach, planting kisses around her bellybutton piercing and toying with her shorts. His tears drip onto the surface of her pale skin, wetting it and making it shine like crystals. Her hands are in his hair and she is pulling his head up gently.

“Why are you crying?” she asks him quietly, thumb brushing away the tears that continue to spill from his eyes.

He shakes his head. “I love you so much, T. This doesn’t feel real, I’ve wanted it for so long.”

“I hope you want for even longer because you aren’t getting rid of me.”

He laughs and sucks her piercing into his mouth, a gasp leaving her pretty pink lips. “Never.”

The tears eventually stop, and he’s left to treasure her body, starting by kissing her torso and eventually pulling her pert nipples into his mouth. She gasps with the action and arches her back beautifully into him. Then, when he is finished ravishing her breasts, he pulls her shorts off and throws them onto the floor.

“Those are expensive,” she pouts when he balls them up.

He blows air onto her cunt and she flinches with a whine. “Sorry, babe. Would you like me to leave and fold them nicely?” Scott asks while licking a stripe up her folds.

She grunts and shakes her head quickly. “Nope, no. Please, just—stay right here, okay?”

Scott nods his head and chuckles against her, continuing to lick her cunt up and then down, over and over again. When he sucks her clit into his mouth, her fingers tighten in his hair and it feels amazing. So good that he has to buck against the mattress to relieve some of the tension in his crotch. She sounds the same as she did all those years ago in PyeongChang, letting out little grunts and whines every so often, usually when he changes pace or sucks harder. Eventually he slips two fingers inside of her and that’s when he actually has to reach up and cover her mouth with his hand.

He is about to apologize, but then he sees the way her eyes darken significantly and is reminded of what exactly Tessa was interested in the last time they did this. So, he keeps his hands there, fingers splayed out across the lower half of her face and tongue continuing to lap at her folds while he continues to pump his wrist in and out of her.

When she comes it’s with a shudder and her lips sucking on two of his fingers that are still at her face. Once he gets her through it, slowing his fingers down inside of her and pulling his mouth away, he kisses his way up her body until he gets to her lips.

“Your turn,” she mumbles against his mouth and flips him over, hands pulling at his belt.

He wants her to go down on him, _god_ , does he ever. But he also wants to fuck her and knows that if she sucks him down there is no way that he will last until that point. “Tess, please, can I just…”

“What do you want?” she drawls while slowly climbing down his body, lips dragging against his chest as she goes.

A sharp breath is inhaled, his lungs filling up only partially. It’s either the lack of oxygen making him dizzy or the woman palming at his crotch and licking his abs. Pretty positive it’s the latter. “Can I fuck you? Please?”

She smirks and unzips his jeans, then reaches in and pulls his dick out of his boxers. “Well, since you asked so nicely, I guess that’s something we can do.”

He growls at her teasing but doesn’t make any motion to move. Instead, he lays there on his back and watches as she pulls his pants and underwear off, leaving them in a heap on the floor. His eyes follow her every move, from when she adjusts her hips, so she is sitting over top of him, to the way she pumps his dick a few times before raising herself to line up with him.

“Wait,” he stops her. “What about a condom? We don’t have the greatest track record.”

She laughs and throws her leg from where it had been on the other side of him. “You’re right,” Tessa says and loots around in her side table, pulling out a condom. He raises and eyebrow at her and she shakes her head. “Would you laugh at me if I said I had been hoping this would happen?”

Scott grabs her hips and pulls her back so that she is straddling him again. “Absolutely not.”

Finally, they get the condom on him, and she sinks down on him. It feels amazing, being engulfed completely by her. He wants to write poetry about this moment, even though he doesn’t think he’s ever picked up and read a poem in his life, at least, not by choice. Her eyelashes flutter closed, but he can’t have that. So, he pinches her hip lightly and watches as she opens her eyes once again.

“Look at me,” he demands. “I want to see you.”

“I’m right here,” she replies. Her finger nails dig into his chest and it should hurt, but all it does is ground him in the moment.

Her hips raise and fall in a steady motion. Her walls clench around him deliciously. _Perfect_ , he thinks. _She is absolutely perfect_.

His thumb begins to rub against her clit when he can tell she is close, and he hopes she comes soon, because he doesn’t know how much longer he is going to last. Scott is about to reach up and wrap his fingers around her throat, just how she likes it. Or, how he thought she liked it. That was before she grabs his hand and pulls it down.

“No,” she gasps out, continuously bouncing on him. “Not now.” He opens and closes his mouth like a fish out of water and she notices his shock. Well, maybe not shock. More like, he feels awful for assuming what she wants, when they’ve only done this once before. She slows down just slightly and opens her mouth to speak. “When we did this last I wanted… _that_ , because I didn’t want to feel so much. I needed a distraction.” He understands. “Please, Scott. I want to feel this.”

That makes him double his efforts. He grabs her hips and pulls them down on him quicker, harder, faster. She whimpers with the motions and reaches her own hand down to rub at her clit, thumb perfectly matching the pace he sets.

“Scott,” she gasps his name out and then she is shaking above him.

“ _Yes_ ,” he hisses and comes into the condom. Colours flash behind his eyes. The green of her eyes. The red of her Moulin Rouge costume. The white of the ice. The black of her hair. The silver of her bellybutton piercing. The grey of her bedsheets. The orange of the sunset that flashes through his mind.

He realizes it’s the one from years ago, sitting in the bed of his truck and promising the world to each other. This time, they promise their lives.

~

Scott thought if they were to ever do _this_ , fall completely for each other without any qualms, it would be dramatic. Their declaration would move planets and his entire world would flip on its side. They would yell and clash and it would end in this big boom where everything finally made sense. Stars would align and moons would become fuller. Questions of the universe would be answered. His heart would set in place forever, almost like he was granted immunity.

But, he finds, and he’s always thought this deep down, none of that happens. In fact, it comes slowly, then all at once. They are them, as they have always been; two souls searching for someone that they’ve finally found. Their lives line up and happiness sprouts between them. Instead of a big boom, it feels like a drop of water in a lake, or even an ocean.

“Do you remember when we were sixteen and fourteen and watching the sunset and stars in the back of my truck?” He asks later that night. She is curled up in his arms, fingers drifting slowly up and down the skin of his stomach. They really should be asleep, but after a failed attempt, the two of them drifted towards each other and began talking in hushed tones.

“You’ll have to be more specific,” she responds.

“You asked me if I wanted to go to the Olympics with you.”

She chuckles lightly. “Oh yeah. I do remember that, actually. It was after your trip to BC.”

“I think that’s the night I fell in love with you.”

Tessa sits up slowly and rests the weight of her body on her elbow. She stares down at him, so beautiful and so open, more than she ever has been before. It’s like he has access to a whole other side of her now. He thought he knew every part of her but, once again, she has proven him wrong. “That was so long ago,” she whispers.

He shrugs. “Yeah, well. I don’t think I knew then. But looking back now, that is the moment my heart belonged to you.”

“Want to know mine?” she asks and settles back down against his chest. He nods his head wordlessly. “I guess I don’t know when I fell in love with you, but I knew the moment I could never belong to anyone else.” He inhales sharply. Hearing her say those words, that she _belongs to him_. It’s like a hymn. “It was when you and Gwen made me breakfast in bed. I snuck downstairs and caught you talking to her, even though she could not hold a conversation at all. You made me eggs and toast and brought them to me after I pretended to be asleep. It was so… simple. But it was everything.”

And that explains his entire thought process on everything. Simple. Not the world moving and earth-shattering reality of them being in love. A drop of water. A change in the weather.

Besides, how shocked can the universe be when two people destined to love forever finally begin to do so.

~

On Gwen’s third birthday, there are significant changes from the previous year.

For starters, the little girl’s hair has begun growing like a weed. Tessa made sure to get it styled so she has bangs sweeping across her forehead, claiming that it’s some rite of passage or something. He braids it in the morning while she babbles about the outfit she has planned to wear for the day. A tutu, of course, and a sparkly purple shirt with a butterfly right on the front.

Another change is their home. Now lived in, their Montreal house has become accustomed to their living habits. Gwen’s toys are scattered in places Scott didn’t even know they could belong. Papers for the different competitions their teams are registered in fill their shared office. The kitchen is stocked with blueberries, pancake mix, avocados (a new fad Tessa is so lovingly trying to get them into), and eggs. And then there is the bedrooms. Gwen’s is still the same, maybe a little bit cleaner than usual considering the guests coming over for the day. But now there is one bedroom separate from hers, where an amalgamation of their belongings comes together.

Now, when they say goodnight to their daughter, instead of parting in the hallway, they intertwine their fingers and crawl into the same bed. Now, they have an _our_ in almost everything. Finally.

There are a few other… _minor_ changes here and there. Like the back deck he’s been working so hard on. And the ring on Tessa’s left hand. And the fact that they can kiss each other whenever they want (especially when Gwen does something extraordinary, like they are saying _we did that_ ). And the bump that’s slowly growing in Tessa’s belly. And the bedroom that used to be his now painted a baby blue with little giraffes painted on the wall. And Maple, absolutely huge now, his paws dirtying up the house. But none of them care, especially not when he licks Gwen’s face and elicits a round of giggles from her (and now, Scott can confirm, they put up a good fight against Tessa’s whimpers).

Their home fills with their family and friends, different people from different times in their lives bringing birthday presents for their little girl and showering her with love and adoration. Gwen plays with Kaleigh and Jordan’s new baby, a little boy that is so tiny still. She blows out her candles, the cake in the shape of a mermaid definitely garnering some of her spit in the process. Tessa stands beside him, arm wrapped around his waist, and kisses his bicep.

“How did we get here?” she mumbles against the sleeve of his shirt.

He leans down and kisses the top of her head. “A lot of fucked up shit and not-so-stupid mistakes. But at least we’re here.”

And in agreeance, she leans up and captures his lips with her own. Scott’s pretty sure that from the corner of the room, one of his brothers mumbles something like _finally_.

 _Yeah_ , Scott thinks.

They win. They fucking win.


End file.
